EVANGELISM
See also: Church growth; Church and evangelism
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
The Bible, 1 Corinthians 3:7
To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.
The Bible, 1 Corinthians 9:22
Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.
The Bible, 2 Corinthians 5:11
There is a trend today that would put a new robe on the prodigal son while he is still feeding hogs. Some would put the ring on his finger while he is still in the pigsty. Others would paint the pigsty and advocate bigger and better hog pens.
Author unknown
To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer.
Thomas Aquinas
There is no joy in all the world like the joy of bringing one soul to Christ.
William Barclay
Methinks if by faith we did indeed look upon them as within a step of hell, it would more effectually untie our tongues, than Coresus’ danger, as they tell us, did his son’s.
Richard Baxter
Satan does not care what we do so long as we do not alert people to their sin. We may sing songs about the sweet by and by, preach sermons and say prayers until doomsday, and he will never concern himself about us, if we don’t wake anybody up. But if we awake the sleeping sinner he will gnash on us with his teeth. This is our work – to wake people up.
Catherine Booth
“Young man, if I thought I could win one more soul for Christ by standing on my head and beating a tambourine with my feet I would learn how to do it.”
William Booth, to Rudyard Kipling, after the latter had said how much he disliked tambourines.
Go for souls.
Go for souls, and go for the worst.
William Booth, his motto
How is it that the soul being of such value, and God so great, eternity so near and yet we are so little moved?
William Bramwell
One who receives this Word, and by it salvation, receives along with it the duty of passing this Word on … Where there is no mission, there is no Church, and where there is neither Church nor mission, there is no faith.
Emil Brunner
The Great Commission is far more than evangelism. I think many evangelicals have a very simplistic view of what it is that God is calling us to do. The Great Commission is to make disciples, “teaching them all I have taught you” (Matthew 28:20).
Chuck Colson
Christ beats his drum, but he does not press men; Christ is served with volunteers.
John Donne
We are the Bibles the world is reading;
We are the creeds the world is needing;
We are the sermons the world is heeding.
Billy Graham
Mass evangelism undoubtedly has its place; parochial missions can make their contribution; a specially gifted evangelist can proclaim his message; the specialist Christian can make his contribution in factory, in politics and in teaching; all these are genuine contributions to the evangelistic activity of the Christian Church: but in the last analysis it is the worshiping community, that part of the body of Christ that worships, lives and proclaims the gospel in all its activities in any given neighborhood, which is the real evangelizing agent used by the Spirit of God.
Bryan Green
There are a lot of Christians who are halfway fellows. They stand in the door, holding on to the Church with one hand while they play with the toys of the world with the other. They are in the doorway and we can’t bring sinners in. And, until we get some of God’s people right, we cannot hope to get sinners regenerated. Now they always accuse me of carrying around a sledge hammer with which to pound the church members. Yes sir, I do pound them, every time I come down, I knock one of the halfway fellows out of the doorway, and every time I knock one out I get a sinner in.
Mordecai Ham
Unless it shares the apostles’ underlying assumptions about evangelism, it is difficult to see how the Church of today can be considered authentically “apostolic.”
J. Andrew Kirk
Jesus Christ did not say, “Go into the world and tell the world that it is quite right.”
C.S. Lewis
The devil studied the nature of each man, seized upon the traits of his soul, adjusted himself to them and insinuated himself gradually into his victims’s confidence – suggesting splendors to the ambitious, gain to the covetous, delight to the sensuous, and a false appearance of piety to the pious – and a winner of souls ought to act in the same cautious and skillful way.
Ignatius Loyola
The problem is not only to win souls, but to save minds.
Charles Malik
There is no better evangelist in the world than the Holy Spirit.
D.L. Moody
Once, when walking down a certain street in Chicago, D.L. Moody stepped up to a man, a perfect stranger to him, and said, “Sir, are you a Christian?” “You mind your own business,” was the reply. Moody replied, “This is my business.”
Our Lamb has conquered, let us follow Him.
Motto of Moravian Brotherhood
To call a man evangelical who is not evangelistic is an utter contradiction.
G. Campbell Morgan
The greatest hindrances to the evangelization of the world are those within the Church.
John R. Mott
The greatest mission field we face is not in some faraway land. It’s barely across the street. The culture most lost to the gospel is our own – our children and neighbors.
Dwight Ozard
The command to evangelize is a part of God’s law. It belongs to God’s revealed will for His people. It could not, then, in principle be affected in the slightest degree by anything that we might believe about God’s sovereignty in election and calling.
J.I. Packer
The task of the evangelist in communicating the gospel is not to make it easier, so that people will respond positively, but to make it clear. Neither Jesus nor his apostles ever reduced the demands of the gospel in order to make converts. No cheap grace, but God’s kindness which is meant to lead to repentance, provides the only solid basis for discipleship.
Rene Padilla
There is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the promises, the life, the death, the resurrection, the kingdom, and the mystery of Jesus Christ the Son of God are not proclaimed.
Pope Paul VI
I exhort you, press on in your course, and exhort all men that they may be saved.
Polycarp
If we spread the gospel, Jesus will spread the salvation.
Juha Räihä
Could a mariner sit idle if he heard the drowning cry?
Could a doctor sit in comfort and just let his patients die?
Could a fireman sit idle, let men burn and give no hand?
Can you sit at ease in Zion with the world around you damned?
Leonard Ravenhill
It will not do for us to go to heaven by ourselves. We must be on fire, friends, for saving others. To be workers will draw heaven down and will draw others to heaven.
Evan Roberts
God is in the people-saving business, and His method is to use His people.
David Siegmann
Christ sent me to preach the gospel and he will look after the results.
Mary Slessor
I’m God’s messenger from the gypsy tent. And it’s the message that’s important, not the messenger.
Gipsy Smith
I would sooner pluck one single brand from the burning than explain all mysteries.
C.H. Spurgeon
It is pure irresponsibility to leave the evangelization of the lost to the “experts,” as many are doing today.
Cornelius Stam
Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Ultimately, evangelism is not a technique. It is the Lord of the Church who reserves to Himself His sovereign right to add to His Church.
John Stott
To evangelize is so to present Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, that men shall come to put their trust in God through him, to accept him as their Savior, and serve him as their King in the fellowship of his church.
William Temple
It is certainly no part of religion to compel religion.
Tertullian
If you were an outstandingly gifted evangelist with an international reputation, and if, under God, you could win 1,000 persons for Christ every night of every year, how long would it take you to win the whole world for Christ? Answer, ignoring the population explosion, over 10,000 years. But if you are a true disciple for Christ, and if you are able under God to win just one person to Christ each year; and if you could then train that person to win one other person for Christ each year, how long would it take to win the whole world for Christ? Answer, just 32 years!
David Watson, speaking of James Kennedy’s illustration
A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify;
A never dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.
Charles Wesley
You have nothing to do but to save souls; therefore spend and be spent in this work.
John Wesley
The uncanny resemblance between evangelistic campaigns and sales campaigns undermined my confidence in what the evangelists said.
John White
It is the temptation of this pragmatic age to presume that technique is the secret of evangelism.
A. Skevington Wood
Evangelism is not simply a matter of bringing individuals to personal faith, though of course that remains central to the whole enterprise. It is a matter of confronting the world with the good, but deeply disturbing, news of a different way of living … the way of love.
N.T. Wright
Our method of proclaiming salvation is this: to point out to every heart the loving Lamb, who died for us, and although He was the Son of God, offered Himself for our sins.
Count Zinzendorf