Maranatha: Body of Christ

THE BODY and EVANGELISM

1 Cor. 12:12-13

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.

Acts 2:41-42

Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Maranatha’s approach to evangelism and spreading the gospel is an outgrowth of our understanding of the Body. For us, evangelism should be fully integrated with the church, because the faithful church is the Body of Christ. Evangelism is done by the church and should bring newly saved souls into the church. Our modern culture is very individualistic, and this has had an unfortunate influence on the way many Christian groups approach evangelism.

In the passage quoted above from the book of Acts, we see the first major evangelistic event in church history: the day of Pentecost. In a single day – after one evangelistic sermon - the church grew from about 120 people (Acts 1:15) to over 3,000.

It is interesting to note what happened to these 3,000 new converts: they immediately joined the church and acted like serious members. This is God’s plan – to integrate every new believer into the Body of Christ. Today, many people attend large evangelistic meetings with famous preachers, respond to an invitation at the end, and then go back to their previous lives. Often they take months or years to commit themselves to serving the Lord gradually – and some never do. This can be a sign that something is wrong with the form of the evangelism itself. The biblical model is for the Holy Spirit to transform a person’s life completely, to make them true disciples or followers of Christ. The new believers in Acts devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching (listening to teachings and preaching), the fellowship, prayer, etc. In other words, they immediately began to attend gatherings of believers faithfully, where they could hear the Word, find support from other believers, and offer themselves in service to the church.

The evangelistic efforts of Maranatha churches generally fall into two categories: the ongoing efforts of each local church to reach their surrounding community, and special evangelistic events (often with tens of thousands in attendance) hosted by the churches in a geographical region working together.

On the local church level, our church members constantly pray together and fast together for the Lord to touch the hearts of our family members, neighbors, co-workers, local authorities, etc. The members of the church invite people to the church services, having prayed faithfully for the person being invited. Most services in our churches have the goal of enabling a visitor to come and have an experience with the Lord: our services are short, the messages are simple, clear, and positive (and biblical), and visitors are welcome to stay after the service to receive prayer individually for their needs. The goal is to have each local church attract and retain new members who are experiencing the operation of the Holy Spirit in their lives – so we want each visitor to have an experience with the Lord in their first service, and to return for more.

We also hold larger evangelistic events or campaigns – some have had 30,000-40,000 in attendance. Our goal at such events is to have the visitors (unbelievers) outnumber our church members – there is little value in having big evangelistic events or revival meetings that are attended only by existing church members. We do not usually advertise such events, and we never announce who will be preaching beforehand (there is no value in elevating a preacher). We never ask for money or take an offering at such events – the purpose of the event is to reach outsiders, and we have something to give them, not take from them. Legions of volunteers from our churches in the region handle all the planning, setup, sound, and cleanup afterward. Almost all the visitors have been invited by a member of the church (sometimes a single member will bring dozens to the event), which means the visitor has a contact already who can bring them to the local church in the days following the event. Our goal is to get every visitor integrated into our local churches in that area so they can grow and develop spiritually. We are not concerned about the numbers who come as much as the numbers who stay, who become committed servants in the local church. We approach evangelism as an activity of the Body.

The Apostle Paul wrote that Jesus Christ gave himself “to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” (Titus 2:14) The Lord designed His project of salvation to produce a people who belong to Him - a Body, the faithful church (“eager to do what is good”). Our approach to evangelism reflects this understanding of salvation – that the Lord wants to save people, but he also wants the saved people to be “a people,” a Body.