More tips on doing personal evangelism

Guest post by Martin Buehlmann Church is not just a building and not just a worship service. Church is first of all a lived community and the following of Jesus! In the Bible, the word "church" is often understood as a community of people. Phrases that describe it include the Body of Christ, the People of God and the Fellowship of the Saints. This means that church happens in everyday life — in our relationships, in serving, in sharing, and in living out our faith together. In other words, church is not the place you go to, but the life you live together. The church should also be a community of love. For in John 13:34-35 Jesus said, "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Love, mutual care, and community are therefore central marks of the church. In the New Testament, Christians often met together in homes (see for example Rom 16:5, Col 4:15 and Philem 2). The early church was therefore not primarily an institution with church buildings, but a community of faith lived out in everyday life. So church is not only a place you attend, but a community you live. Be blessed and encouraged! Martin Buehlmann Leader Emeritus of the Vineyard Movement in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

In a previous post I talked about some instructions that Jesus gave his followers when he sent them forth on their first ministry trip. One additional instruction Jesus gave to them was this: "Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them" (Mark 6:11). This instruction — to shake off the dust from their feet — used to bother me, because it sounds like the disciples would be saying "To hell with you!" as they departed from towns that didn't receive their message. And since the message of the gospel is supposed to be good news (Mark 1:15) it seems somewhat discordant for them to say something like that. The key however to understanding Jesus' instruction is the phrase "as a testimony against them". The idea is that when harvest time arrives at the end of the age, God will send forth his angels to gather his wheat into his barn (see Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43). And when the angels come to those who rejected the message, the people of that town will likely cry "But we never even heard about this good news! Give us a chance please to repent!" Then the angels will point to the dust still lying on the ground and say, "See? There is the evidence that you were given opportunity to repent! But you rejected those the Lord sent you!" And so they will have no excuse. Of course all this happened two thousand years ago and all of those towns and the people that were in them are long gone. So the focus here can't be on the final Day of Judgment, but on the judgment that happened a few decades later when the Roman legions under Titus swept across Judea and beseiged Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish temple (see Matthew 24). For while with the coming of Jesus God's future kingdom now breaks through intermittently into our present age with signs and wonders and with healings and deliverance, so also the future judgement by the Son of Man breaks through from time to time into our present evil age. (Image: Sandals - from a Renaissance painting, artist unknown)