EVANGELISM

Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | Uncategorized

Remember John the Baptist?  Remember how he heralded the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ out in the wilderness, subsisting on locusts and wild honey and wearing a raiment of camel’s hair?

Remember how Jesus Himself proclaimed the Good News anywhere people cared to hear Him, in synagogues, on a hillside or in a boat?  Remember how His apostles boldly proclaimed the Gospel in the Temple, on the streets and everywhere else they could?

Remember Paul?  Remember how he proclaimed Christ in synagogues, in public gathering places, by riversides and in jails, traveling incredible distances and enduring incredible hardships up to and including his own death?  Remember the nameless, countless others who proclaimed Jesus at the cost of their lives?

Remember men like the Dominicans who took to the road carrying little or nothing, slept under the stars and preached the Word to anyone who would listen?  Remember those countless Reformers, shut out of state church buildings, who turned rocks into pulpits or trees into churches?

Remember preachers like Jonathan Edwards who laid it on the line one day in 1741 and changed the world?  Remember men like George Whitefield and John Wesley who went everywhere preaching the Gospel indoors or out of it?

Remember men like Charles Spurgeon or Billy Graham who told people about Jesus under roofs and under skies, in good weather and bad?  Remember John Paul II, that old soldier who stayed at his post preaching the Gospel until the very last day of his life?

And what about that street preacher you see in the park every day on your way to work? You don’t even know his name and he might not be much of a preacher, more of a joke to passers-by than anything else, but that fellow wouldn’t be standing out there every single day if he didn’t love and love hard.

Ah, those were the days:

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That since proclaiming the Good News of the Reign of God is an essential mission of The Episcopal Church, that the 76th General Convention direct that the next triennium be a period of strategic planning to determine how to implement this priority and to make resources available to encourage this work at the diocesan and local levels; and be it further

Resolved, That the strategic plan include a strategy for growing the church, increasing congregational vitality, planting new churches, and redeveloping dying congregations, as essential components of this mission; and be it further

Resolved, That this strategic plan pay particular attention to the challenges of proclaiming the Good News in a multicultural context, to young people, to underserved and marginalized populations, and to people with no church background; and be it further

Resolved, That the work of creating this strategic plan should be a joint effort undertaken by the following groups, in consultation with the Standing Commission on Domestic Mission and Evangelism: the Executive Council Strategic Planning Committee; the Center for Evangelism and Congregational Life of the Episcopal Church Center; and the Congregations in Mission Standing Committee of Executive Council; and be it further

Resolved, That the work of creating this strategic plan be completed, presented to Executive Council, and made available to deputies to the 77th General Convention by January 1, 2012.

19 Comments to EVANGELISM

Dr.D
June 18, 2009

Boy, I hope they get that all resolved.

Jeanne I
June 18, 2009

They are going to “study it” for three years!! Geesh, just go do it!!!!!

obituary
June 18, 2009

Isn’t there a book already written on how to do that?

The Little Myrmidon
June 18, 2009

Obit,. Yes and all the above verbiage could be summed up in Matthew 28:19 - “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost..”

The TEC-ers have a lot in common with the Obaminators, they think “Hope” is a course of action.

Paula Loughlin
June 18, 2009

I think it will all come to a screeching halt when someone remembers the reason we need to hear the Good News. The whole sinner in need of redemption coming to Christ in sorrowful repentence and rejoicing at being forgiven out of Christ’s Love and Mercy.

You see there truly are no sins in the Episcopal church that can not be atoned for by writing a check in the suitable amount. No personal failures such as lust, greed, sloth need worry one. Instead we have the likes of abuse of the environment, bigotry, homophobia, and sexism. All which can be covered by a generous donation to the Democratic Party or other political action committee of your choice. For those who want to avoid the whole political taint a donation to charity of your choice is a wonderful way to show you have grown.

Alice C. Linsley
June 18, 2009

Better that TEO not evangelize. Its “gospel’ is a false one.

Whitestone
June 18, 2009

The TEC plan is to go into all the world and preach the gospel of Affirmation, Acceptance, Affection and Aquisition.

Affirmation of homosex
Acceptance of abortion
Affection for everyone who agrees with us
Aquisition of power, assets and property of anyone who disagrees

LaVallette
June 18, 2009

“That the work of creating this strategic plan should be a joint effort undertaken by the following groups, in consultation with the Standing Commission on Domestic Mission and Evangelism: the Executive Council Strategic Planning Committee; the Center for Evangelism and Congregational Life of the Episcopal Church Center; and the Congregations in Mission Standing Committee of Executive Council; ”

Methinks another camel is in the offing.

FW Ken
June 18, 2009

There are Episcopal evangelists, too. Names like Sam Shoemaker, Keith Miller, Graham Pulkingam, Michael Green, J.L. Packer, and who else?

Russell
June 18, 2009

“Resolved, That this strategic plan pay particular attention to the challenges of proclaiming the Good News in a multicultural context, to young people, to underserved and marginalized populations, and to people with no church background;”

Remember the 20/20 Evangelism campaign from the 1999 Gen Con to grow TEC by 20% in 20 years? This is exactly where it got derailed. The special interests groups started elbowing their way into the “evangelicam” process and turned it into a affirmative action funding battle and pretty much sunk the whole thing. Demoralizing, ain’t it?

Katherine
June 19, 2009

I’m old enough to remember the Decade of Evangelism (80s?). This is more of the same. If you don’t have the true Gospel to proclaim, it’s not going anywhere but committees and reports.

Fuinseoig
June 19, 2009

“(P)roclaiming the Good News of the Reign of God is an essential mission of The Episcopal Church”

Frankly, I’m astounded. I thought the essential mission was proclaiming the MDGs? Who’s this God fellow?

midwestnorwegian
June 19, 2009

Why, hell…alls we need is a Resolution!

A Resolution….yeah….that’ll fix everything!

Janjan
June 19, 2009

“GO forth, and create committees……….”

Dave
June 19, 2009

Ya gotta love it!

The solution is to form a committee of committees to take 3 years to study how we might want to sell our product (assuming we can ever figure out what that is) at some future date.

If an advertising agency ever came to me with a campaign like that one, I’d fire them on the spot (after a good belly laugh, that is).

You REALLY can’t make this stuff up!

Allen Lewis
June 19, 2009

Just more of the same from an organization that believes itself to be the Genuine Bee’s Knees!

The Episcopal Church has morphed into a bunch of self-congratulatory narcissists!

I well remember the Decade of Evangelism - what a dud! - the 20/20 Plan - likewise a failure. This resolution will pass. The delegates will all high-five each other for doing something positive about “mission” and then will fade into a bureaucratic black hole of endless committee meetings which will finally birth a still-born plan which will accomplish absolutely nothing.

The Episcopal Church has not figured out that it has nothing to sell except licentiousness. People can do that on their own, thank you very much. I doubt that having the official sanction of a purported Christian organization is going to make a whole lot of difference to most people.

Our Heroine
June 19, 2009

This is a classic example of Underpants Gnomes thinking:

Phase 1: Period of strategic planning
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Evangelism!

dwstroudmd
June 19, 2009

@)@). That’s the capitalized results of 2020. It’s also the face of episcopal evangelism.

Of local interest, the diocesan participation in the Gay Pride parade in St Louis was considered “evangelism” in the years I studied at ESM - at least by the participants of the ESM who also participated in the parade.

The local statistics from the national organization suggests that it was not successful.

[...] every Christian denomination that throws evangelization into the slag heap of a study group or gives missionary work the old heave-ho, there [...]

Leave a comment

Support The MCJ

Search

Links

Meta