The authors begin by telling us that
speech is very effective and powerful when it comes to persuasion. Great benefit or great injury results
from effective speech. Proverbs
says that death and life are in the power of the tongue, and James says the
tongue is set on fire by hell likening it to a spark that sets a whole forest
on fire or a small rudder that controls an entire ship. The interesting story that the author
gives about the power of words is the story about Hitler hearing Winston
Churchill talking about defending Great Britain and that causes Hitler to
change his mind and not invade with infantry.
There are many churches that are closing down in America everyday and also in many other European countries as well. Mark says he has found a parallel to the decline of church attendance in the West and to sharing ones faith publicly. He says that almost nobody ever does public proclamation of the Gospel anymore and it is resulting in dry luke-warm Christianity. Clearly there is a connection between church attendance and proclaiming Christ.
The first church was birthed through a powerful demonstration of Gospel preaching when Peter got up in Acts chapter 2 and led over 3000 Jews into the Kingdom of God. Mark sees the book of Acts as a guide on how to start a church. The majority of Christians today start out with doing a Bible study in a specific area and then gradually over time making that into a church. But if we follow the example we are supposed to follow, the Bible, then we can be really effective in starting solid churches. Mark found three principles in Acts on how to start a church. The first is preparation. The second is proclamation, and the third is preservation (discipling). The bible is the most perfect and most effective way to find out how to start a church.
All through history Christians have preached the Gospel openly. Jesus commanded us to preach the gospel into the entire world. There are early church historians that wrote about Christians publicly preaching the Gospel. By the year 350 there were over 33 millions Christians. The early church had tremendous growth because they were constantly sharing God’s word. In the 1500’s God raised up an army of Christians such as Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc. to get back to the Bible and preach from the Bible. In the 1700’s and 1800’s powerful open-air preachers of the Gospel set off the Great Awakenings. The reason so few people know God today is because the message of God is not being proclaimed.
The big reason for this Lon says is that people have been programmed to think that the evangelist is some Bible-thumping immoral person that wants your money. Statistics show that most people shudder when they think of one. He also says that people think America is a Christian nation therefore the evangelist is not needed. But that is simply not the case at all. Jesus said to go and make disciples, and there is no other greater time to do that then now. The evangelist not only preaches Christ openly but also teaches the church how the evangelize and learn the art of evangelism. When this happens many positive things result such as getting people to obey the Great Commission, enhancing sense of purpose, creating God-consciousness, discipling the church, dislodging the powers of darkness and many other wonderful things.
People do not think evangelism is that effective so many do not even attempt it but stay huddled in their cozy Christian community. But this would not be the case if we preached the real Gospel. The real Gospel has been “lost” you could say. The majority of preachers today focus and magnify only on God’s love and then call people forward to say a prayer. The true Gospel, the gospel that caused John the Baptist to loose his head, is not being preached. John’s and Jesus’ gospel was about repentance of sin and surrendering your life, dreams, goals and giving them up to have Christ. But today Jesus is preached in a way to make it sound like He’s something you just put in your pocket and you pull Him out when you need Him. Jesus talked about hell, wrath, and sin, so we need to talk about hell, wrath and sin.
Mark and Lon tell about their experiences with open-air preaching and how they do it when it comes to preparation, proclamation, and discipling. It’s interesting that many Christians think spiritual warfare is only prayer before you go out to preach, but it is actually both. Whenever you proclaim truth you are exposing error and lies that the enemy has bound the non-Christian in. Demonic stronghold’s are in the mind, so when you come against false ideas with the truth you are defeating the devil.
I liked how the authors started in the beginning with where the open air preaching originated, the Bible, and then went into talking about that Christians all throughout history have done it. Open air preaching is a normal thing if you look at it from a biblical perspective. That’s the reason I think Christians are not friendly to the idea of publicly sharing your faith with strangers because they look at the Bible as a book of good suggestions and not a book to base your complete way of life around. If Christians were truly seeking to be more like Jesus then they would seek to preach the gospel everywhere they went just like Jesus did.
In chapter seven the authors give some basic points that you need to go over in order to make the gospel clear. I agree with all of them except for the fact that they did not elaborate on what exactly needs to be said. They did not talk specifically about what sin is, which is a huge part in salvation because if you do not know what sin is then you cannot repent, and if you do not repent Jesus says you will perish in Luke 13:3. We need more preaching on sin, wrath, hell, and judgment Day so people will consider the goodness and severity of God and really come to Him in thankfulness when they see the grace of God compared to the justice of God.
I did not really agree with the authors completely on the subject of seeking relevance. I think the gospel is relevant to everybody everywhere at all times, but only if you are preaching the New Testament Gospel. I think many today have heard so much that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives that they have no concept of who God is and they go off hardening their heart because they have been bombarded with “Jesus is the answer,” when they have not even known what the question is. I think the main reason for all the seeker sensitive movements today is because Christians are trying to make God acceptable to the sinner when in reality we need to get the sinner to be acceptable to God. I think the means to get sinners to come to meetings or gatherings to hear the gospel is fine, but the actual preaching needs to be from the word of God and not watered down in the least lest we run the risk of twisting God’s word.
The spiritual warfare chapter was very interesting because I always thought of it as on your knees praying before you go out and preach. I am glad I learned that the actual preaching is spiritual warfare because sometimes I think Christians think that praying is good enough when it comes to winning the lost. I believe A.W. Tozer when he says, “I believe our problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work.” If we would put half as much effort into sharing our faith as we do in prayer then I believe that this nation could be awakened once again, but unless Christians are opening their mouth for the gospel then this will not happen.
To tell you the truth when I saw that Intervarsity Press printed this book I was not exactly excited. I was part of IV a long time before coming to CFNI and they were not really serious about living a surrendered life to God. Most of the books I have read by IVP before were not too challenging in the area of evangelism. But this book I have to say is quality and positive information on the topic of open air preaching, and I would recommend it to anyone that wants to know more what the call to preach the gospel is all about.
There are many churches that are closing down in America everyday and also in many other European countries as well. Mark says he has found a parallel to the decline of church attendance in the West and to sharing ones faith publicly. He says that almost nobody ever does public proclamation of the Gospel anymore and it is resulting in dry luke-warm Christianity. Clearly there is a connection between church attendance and proclaiming Christ.
The first church was birthed through a powerful demonstration of Gospel preaching when Peter got up in Acts chapter 2 and led over 3000 Jews into the Kingdom of God. Mark sees the book of Acts as a guide on how to start a church. The majority of Christians today start out with doing a Bible study in a specific area and then gradually over time making that into a church. But if we follow the example we are supposed to follow, the Bible, then we can be really effective in starting solid churches. Mark found three principles in Acts on how to start a church. The first is preparation. The second is proclamation, and the third is preservation (discipling). The bible is the most perfect and most effective way to find out how to start a church.
All through history Christians have preached the Gospel openly. Jesus commanded us to preach the gospel into the entire world. There are early church historians that wrote about Christians publicly preaching the Gospel. By the year 350 there were over 33 millions Christians. The early church had tremendous growth because they were constantly sharing God’s word. In the 1500’s God raised up an army of Christians such as Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc. to get back to the Bible and preach from the Bible. In the 1700’s and 1800’s powerful open-air preachers of the Gospel set off the Great Awakenings. The reason so few people know God today is because the message of God is not being proclaimed.
The big reason for this Lon says is that people have been programmed to think that the evangelist is some Bible-thumping immoral person that wants your money. Statistics show that most people shudder when they think of one. He also says that people think America is a Christian nation therefore the evangelist is not needed. But that is simply not the case at all. Jesus said to go and make disciples, and there is no other greater time to do that then now. The evangelist not only preaches Christ openly but also teaches the church how the evangelize and learn the art of evangelism. When this happens many positive things result such as getting people to obey the Great Commission, enhancing sense of purpose, creating God-consciousness, discipling the church, dislodging the powers of darkness and many other wonderful things.
People do not think evangelism is that effective so many do not even attempt it but stay huddled in their cozy Christian community. But this would not be the case if we preached the real Gospel. The real Gospel has been “lost” you could say. The majority of preachers today focus and magnify only on God’s love and then call people forward to say a prayer. The true Gospel, the gospel that caused John the Baptist to loose his head, is not being preached. John’s and Jesus’ gospel was about repentance of sin and surrendering your life, dreams, goals and giving them up to have Christ. But today Jesus is preached in a way to make it sound like He’s something you just put in your pocket and you pull Him out when you need Him. Jesus talked about hell, wrath, and sin, so we need to talk about hell, wrath and sin.
Mark and Lon tell about their experiences with open-air preaching and how they do it when it comes to preparation, proclamation, and discipling. It’s interesting that many Christians think spiritual warfare is only prayer before you go out to preach, but it is actually both. Whenever you proclaim truth you are exposing error and lies that the enemy has bound the non-Christian in. Demonic stronghold’s are in the mind, so when you come against false ideas with the truth you are defeating the devil.
I liked how the authors started in the beginning with where the open air preaching originated, the Bible, and then went into talking about that Christians all throughout history have done it. Open air preaching is a normal thing if you look at it from a biblical perspective. That’s the reason I think Christians are not friendly to the idea of publicly sharing your faith with strangers because they look at the Bible as a book of good suggestions and not a book to base your complete way of life around. If Christians were truly seeking to be more like Jesus then they would seek to preach the gospel everywhere they went just like Jesus did.
In chapter seven the authors give some basic points that you need to go over in order to make the gospel clear. I agree with all of them except for the fact that they did not elaborate on what exactly needs to be said. They did not talk specifically about what sin is, which is a huge part in salvation because if you do not know what sin is then you cannot repent, and if you do not repent Jesus says you will perish in Luke 13:3. We need more preaching on sin, wrath, hell, and judgment Day so people will consider the goodness and severity of God and really come to Him in thankfulness when they see the grace of God compared to the justice of God.
I did not really agree with the authors completely on the subject of seeking relevance. I think the gospel is relevant to everybody everywhere at all times, but only if you are preaching the New Testament Gospel. I think many today have heard so much that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives that they have no concept of who God is and they go off hardening their heart because they have been bombarded with “Jesus is the answer,” when they have not even known what the question is. I think the main reason for all the seeker sensitive movements today is because Christians are trying to make God acceptable to the sinner when in reality we need to get the sinner to be acceptable to God. I think the means to get sinners to come to meetings or gatherings to hear the gospel is fine, but the actual preaching needs to be from the word of God and not watered down in the least lest we run the risk of twisting God’s word.
The spiritual warfare chapter was very interesting because I always thought of it as on your knees praying before you go out and preach. I am glad I learned that the actual preaching is spiritual warfare because sometimes I think Christians think that praying is good enough when it comes to winning the lost. I believe A.W. Tozer when he says, “I believe our problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work.” If we would put half as much effort into sharing our faith as we do in prayer then I believe that this nation could be awakened once again, but unless Christians are opening their mouth for the gospel then this will not happen.
To tell you the truth when I saw that Intervarsity Press printed this book I was not exactly excited. I was part of IV a long time before coming to CFNI and they were not really serious about living a surrendered life to God. Most of the books I have read by IVP before were not too challenging in the area of evangelism. But this book I have to say is quality and positive information on the topic of open air preaching, and I would recommend it to anyone that wants to know more what the call to preach the gospel is all about.
