In a series of sermons we have been exploring the three dimensions of being church - Exaltation, Edification and Evangelism. It is as we develop these three dimensions in our community of faith, that we become the church that Jesus would have us be.

We have considered the worship dimension of our corporate life, looking upward and living out our lives with reference to God, giving him worth. And we are also called to look inward to each other, joining ourselves together one with another. This is the Edification Dimension.

Today then, I wish to explore the third dimension, that of Evangelism, where we are called to look out of our ghetto into the world that dwells without reference to Christ. In as much as we look up and look in, we are also called to look out. As William Temple put it, the church is the only organisation that exists for those who do not belong to it yet. An essential element then for the church to fulfil her purpose in the world is the dimension that reaches out and draws others in.

Well what is evangelism?

To start with it is the most feared topic to preach on. Mention the word evangelism and most people seem to want to find something else to do. It evokes feelings of guilt and inadequacy and the panic that the preacher may be recruiting for a door knocking campaign or a series of mass rallies or an invitation service or something else equally unattractive. I know - I feel the same way.

This is how the church has traditionally portrayed evangelism. Evangelism in the traditional sense is seen as a type of sheep dog exercise, rounding up the strays "the lost" if you like, and returning them to the fold. Perhaps this is the problem. For in this worldview, we have narrowed down our definition: we see Evangelism as a description of an action or an activity. What if I was to say that evangelism is not an activity but an attitude.

Well what is this good news?

The good news is that God cares - John 3:16 "God so loved the world that he gave - and he gave that we might have eternal life." Sure we can get involved in theories of the atonement and sin and human nature and aspects of soteriology, but this is an explanation of how God acted. This is not the Good News. The Good News is that God acted, and that action is from a heart of love.

Those of you who are in relationships, I wonder if you can remember when your partner first said ‘I love you’, or perhaps those in long-standing relationships can you remember the last time. Yet it is more just the words that portray that message of love. It is the actions that demonstrate these words as well. When God sent Jesus, he put his I love you into action, and that is the good news, and that is what we are called to proclaim.

Think of a newly engaged lady, how proudly she shows of the ring on her finger. She proclaims to the world the gift of love and the fact that she is loved. And she responds to her experience of that love with love and the way she lives it out. The ring remains as a symbol, a reminder of that love, and if she fails to wear it, she denies that love.

Is this not a simple image of what evangelism is all about. Are we not declaring to the world, that we are loved by God, and they are also loved. God loves us. God loves me!!

So then we start evangelism, with the experience of God’s love. The greater the experience of the love of God, the greater the desire to proclaim it to others. Here is why the community of faith is so important. It is in that community of faith, that I should experience the love of God. Paul writes God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us

The sense of this verse is that our hearts overflow with that love. In this way, the love of God permeates the whole community of Faith. As we gather together, it should be the atmosphere that we breathe, for without it, as Paul says, we are but empty gongs and clashing cymbals. Evangelism is not an activity of the church, or a programme, but the natural outworking of the experience of the love of God in community.

And this is what we see in fact. The groups of Christians whose gatherings demonstrate love for one another, which may not necessarily have their theology completely right, seem to be more eager to proclaim the love of God to the world than those whose theology is more orthodox. Charismatic and Pentecostal groups are active in seeking others to bring them to the love of God, to the love that they experience. It is a pity that we do not see this happening more in the more mainstream churches. When we encounter those who are more overwhelmed by the love of God, there is a tendency to drive these people out rather than to welcome them, as if we fear the intimacy that they have with God, and yet intimacy is the response to love.

To begin evangelism, it is not about finding the right programme or the right formula, but about a knowledge of Jesus that reflects the intimacy of the relationship between husband and wife. Our motivation for evangelism is not because the numbers need boosting or the plate is a little low but rather that we love the other as they are loved by God. To engage in evangelism is about drawing others into the circle of God’s love. We become God’s instruments of love to the world, of love to those who are unlovely because of the impact of sin on their lives and yet loved by God all the same.

Evangelism then is not just another dimension of church life, a dimension that we may take or leave. A community of faith, which has its worship and corporate life in order, will by its very nature become concerned about taking the good news to others. Their members, who are so overwhelmed by the love that God has shown them, will want to take that love to others.

So let us practical about this. Are you an evangelist? - a proclaimer of the good news? Images of ministry are often seen in terms of the formal activity of the church or Christians. A preacher in a pulpit. A Chaplain at the Hospital Bed. Youth Group devotion, Missionary Meeting. An Altar Call. An Evangelistic Rally. Evangelism is about the church in action, and so we see evangelism in these formal terms. To do the God things, we must take on the God role. Evangelism takes place in the special religious world. These days, we often try to separate Jesus into the Religious world away from the worker-day world, from the every-day world, yet the essence of the incarnation - the event that we celebrate each Christmas is the word becoming flesh - the Son of God entering our world as one of us. Jesus did not enter a religious world, but was part of the normal mundane world. We assume that he, like his father Joseph, worked in a carpenter’s workshop in Nazareth before taking up the itinerant life of a teacher.

Jesus was part of the human world. It was nothing special, and yet the presence of Jesus made it so. And this made the opportunity for something to happen.

Evangelism is not about the setting up a religious opportunity, but rather the concept of making the opportunity out of the ordinary every day. This is the true meaning of great commission - Matthew 28:18 - Go into all the world and make disciples, baptising them in the name of............ How many times have you heard sermons preached on this verse? GO into all the world.... It is the missionary call isn’t it. It is the call to go. Perhaps you may be surprised if I say that this is Isogesis - reading into the text what we want it to say.

Now I am not interested in trying to blind you with scholarship, but if we read this passage in the Greek, we find the emphasis is slightly different. It has the sense of "Going into the world. Make disciples. Or as I like to translate it. As you go about your daily life in this world, Make disciples along the way. Or perhaps even in more expanded form: As you go about your daily life in this world, live out your life in such a way that you Make disciples along the way. You see it is not about a missionary call, but about what each of us ought to do as a matter of course.

In our Christian walk, the call is to make disciples as we go through life. It is where it is that life takes us is our place of activity. Not a special mission field, but in our own world.

I am not talking here about preaching or talking. These have their place, but I am thinking of St Francis words to his followers: "Go forth and proclaim the gospel - and if necessary use words." Are you seen by the world as a follower of Jesus, as someone who loves him above all else? As you walk through the world, can the world tell who you love. Evangelism then begins with you and I. It is the measure of our relationship with God.

Maybe we should feel a little guilty, for have we worked as hard as we ought to on our relationship with Jesus. Let us take up the challenge, to continue to build the community of love that will proclaim to the world the good news, the news that God cares.