Modern Forms of Evangelism and Ministry - Church Planters' Workshop

Modern Forms of Evangelism and Ministry rejecting the old standards for new and showy, ill affecting the ministry and evangelism.

Contents

1 Introduction
2 The Problem: Spiritual Disinterest
3 How does an unsaved “minister of Christ” affect us?
- 3.1 Other affected Points
4 Can Superman and Spiderman save us?
5 Comic Book Villains
6 What is a Superhero?
7 Satan’s Counterfeit Christs
- 7.1 See my Tracts
8
9 More Articles about False Prophets

Introduction

Today, our generation wants anything and everything that is “new,” what has never been done before, what is “spectacular“. This force rejects what is normal, like we have always done things, the old standards as being wrong and undesired simply because it is not new or showy. This is a ploy of the devil. In this article, I want to focus on this how this has changed the ministry for the worse, especially with our youth people and in evangelism.

The Problem: Spiritual Disinterest

What we are seeing in Christianity in our day is a twofold problem, (1) A great spiritual disinterest in unsaved and even saved people, (2) a great lack in our ministers, that is, they lack talent in presenting the gospel and spiritual principles as Jesus, Paul, Moses, and the rest of the Bible preachers, a lack of guidance from the Holy Spirit, a lack of purity in ministry (the sons of the prophet Eli, Hophni and Phinehas 1 Samuel 2:12-4:11, did ministry “in their own way“, and God condemned them for it (removed all blessing and benefit from what they did, and punished them for their error), and (3) additionally condemned their father for not having the internal fortitude to oppose his own sons), and at worst, even ministers who just are not themselves saved.

Matthew 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Was Christ referring to the whole methodology of Church Growth and Evangelism? We are not to sell our souls to Hollywood and Madison Avenue types of success and growth. Businesses use this cut-throat deceptions all the time to increase their “bottom line” (the greed motive, or the riches motive, which Christ condemned in Luke 8:14). The point is, you cannot do God’s work using the Devil’s methods. It just doesn’t work. God has to send the Holy Spirit into the witnessing process for any spiritually good thing to result, and God never blesses with the Holy Spirit when the methodology is just not God’s will. Motives and manners of doing things is extremely important. Hophni and Phinebas received their “salary,” but in doing things out of God’s will according to how they thought best condemned their entire ministry. Basically, this ALWAYS happens when the minister himself is not even saved, and he tries to be a minister of God.

Matthew 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

The point of Christ’s teaching is that the fruit, that desirable thing that has some distance in time from their actions, is what indicates if the minister is of God or of Satan. So we need to clearly understand this in the context of our churches, the ministry in general, as well as evangelism. It is much easier to get a verbal “agreement” that the individual does not want to go to hell from the unsaved, that for them to have a moral conversion of their lives, i.e. that they are born again which is obligatory according to Jesus (John 3:5 Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.)

How does an unsaved “minister of Christ” affect us?

The primary way is by way of a bad example. Other less mature ministries will follow their example, use their methods, especially if those methods seem to produce some kind of desired results. Even those “results” are toxic.

Other affected Points

These false ministers are doing the work of Satan. What they are doing is trying to eclipse (block out the true sun) which the true ministers of Christ are trying to do. (1) They take the attention of God’s people off of true ministers, and try to force a numbers based “success/failure” ideology on the church. Simply put, if you do not have large crowds, big building, great programs (which does not edify but entertains), and a show of lots of income, you are not successful in the Lord’s work. All of this is not true.

Mat 7:21-23 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

The key to understanding this teaching is in understanding that what should be the absolute law for ministers, churches, Christians, and evangelists is that religious activity is not rewarded by God but rather strict obedience to God’s principles, rules, and commands. These false prophets (that is what Jesus is calling them) were extremely active “in the service of the Lord”, but Jesus says He does not even recognize them as being saved themselves, much less do they serve God’s purposes. They are cast into hell in the end.

Can Superman and Spiderman save us?

There are so many broken principles here that it is hard to capture all of what is going on. But even in touching on some of these principles, we begin to see that the entire foundation of what we are seeing today is just all wrong. Firstly, Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44), deception, trickery, etc. There is a very keen point in evangelism that has to be observed always. We do not deceive the unsaved in any way in order to get something we want from them. Nobody is saved if they have the wrong motives. Christ, in the parable of the Sower, dealt with the wrong motives of people in evangelism, and the point of Christ (Matthew 13) is that again, the long term results (or fruit) did not meet the muster of a saved person. There was no spiritual fruit in the three soils (the parable is about different soils, because the seed or gospel was the same in each case).

When a kid sees a person dressed as Superman, Spiderman, or even a gay drag queen, they think Halloween and want to come and see more. Is that the proper motive for somebody coming to Christ? Is this not exactly like Christ taught, the soil which was stony “had not much depth of earth” or depth to the springing young plant. This type of seedling (or person) isn’t saved, even though it showed a lot of leaves and stem. The end result is not the spiritual fruit that God uses as the criterion for salvation or damnation. A plant’s resources go into stem and leaves when it cannot produce a strong root structure. But again, these people went to hell in the end.

Matthew 13:5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: Matthew 13:6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. Matthew 13:20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Matthew 13:21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.

These “converts” are people who have no spiritual depth in their soul. They are “in the church”, or “use the name Christian”, but when their “Christianity” or religion is taxed by what God uses to try even Christian, they stop being a Christian and run away. False prophets have a typically high loss rate. (Even true Christianity has a lot of losses, but the false prophet will have a “turn-over rate” that is very high from year to year. It is hard to find true Christians who will stand for Christ and be firm over all of their lives, but these people are constantly pumping up their people while at the same time hiding their turnover rate.)

Matthew 13:22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. Luke 8:14 And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.

This soil has the distinctive that the person is easier distracted from following Christ. They “embrace” Christianity in a superficial form. In other words, for a while they grow very well as a new convert, but with time, other things become more important than going to hell, having a good relationship with God. These are the people that simply “turn off” their Christianity until they get sick, go broke, or need something from God. Then they become active again until they either get what they want, or they give up and go back into the world.

It is very important to see the Lukan version. Most probably Jesus preached this same teaching to many different crowds of people, and Luke is giving us one of those cases, and Matthew another. But one of the erroneous motives for receiving the gospel that caused them to not be saved in the end was because they were seeking “the pleasures of this life“, entertainment. Here we see how they bowed to Superman (a superhero) instead of God incarnate.

Here, a question to meditate on. If Satan constructs a false view of life, and the motives, desires, and interests for humans to not come to God, then he will use Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and all the superheroes of today’s world. Movies construct a SciFi world, i.e. fantasy, not reality. God and the true preachers of God deal with reality, because that reality is what God calls “Truth,” the opposite of lies. How can God use a falsity to do the work of God? This is completely contrary the one to the other, yet this is what is being taught and practiced in Christianity in our day. Sad.

Comic Book Villains

In this fantasy world that Satan wants to fill our minds with, the villains are the opposite of the superheros. But is this right? God presents that we all are sinners and there is no one who is just in the eyes of God. But exalting all the enemies of the world into certain super villains, this confuses the fact that everybody is a sinner.

What is a Superhero?

If you meditate on the concept of a superhero, you see that these people are held up to everyone as examples. It would seem that it is very common people to want to “move mountains” by some expression of their wills. Pentecostals have latched onto this concept, and their inner movement of call it or name, etc. calls on some supernatural power that people are supposed to have because they are Christians. Is that the impression we have from the Bible? Isn’t that God will give us boundless energy through Christ, through the Holy Spirit, to have victory over sin?

The problem is a moved focus. Instead of sin being the problem, some will of some super villain is the problem. He wants to conquer the world, cause harm, etc. But you really don’t get any sense of sin in the comic book world of villains and superheros. The bad guys do wrong, and therefore anything the good guy does is justified. If you take a survey of Hollywood movies, there is a constantly recurring them which goes like this. Some “guy person” was wronged, and either there is no justice (government, the laws, police, etc.) or justice is not done. That therefore justifies the good guy taking matters into his own hands and doing whatever to get that justice. But this goes against the Bible.

Firstly, we, as Christians, are commanded to submit to governmental authorities (Romans 13:1). God will take every government and each individual in that government, including law makers, judges, government lawyers, and police, into an accounting one day. As Christians, we wait for that day. Vengenace is mine sayeth the Lord. Romans 12:19. But our focus has to be on the sovereignty of God.

Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

The belief (faith) that saves a person is in that God is a rewarder both of those who diligently seek Him, but also is a Judge over those who sin against Him. God is the only super hero in reality. He justifies those who trust in Jesus as their salvation, and condemns and punishes those who reject Christ for their sins.

Again the theme of a superhero “saving the world” is to be meditated on and questioned. Isn’t the hope of a saved person that Jesus is the only true Savior?

Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

1 John 4:14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

You may say that “it is just fantasy, you are being extreme.” But that accusation has been used for a long time against Christians, they are extremists. Yes, in some aspects maybe we are, but we are saved and bound for heaven extremists, which is a whole lot more secure and hopeful that the “anything goes” crowd.

Satan’s Counterfeit Christs

Matthew 24:23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

The context of this verse is that Jesus was predicting that He would die, resurrect and go to heaven, and that He would return one day. But if we understand the concept of “Christ” (or Messiah), it means the anointed one. He is special person in the service of God. which does God’s work. The focus is this special person (there were Old Testament prophets and kings in Israel that were anointed) is that they will “solve our problems“. All of humanity’s problems revolve around sin, and the only true solution is salvation. To deal with civil problems, society’s problems always was a conjoined effort of civil leaders in Israel with the religious leaders (the prophets and teachers).

Today we focus on individuals we consider as “special,” and many times these are presidents and government leaders, people who move certain social issues, etc. but they all focus on the same thing, solving the world’s problems. In their own way, they present themselves as “christs” (note little “c”). They take the focus, and their “salvation” is something that almost completely ignores our sins as the cause of our problems, and also refuses to see the real solution of believing on Jesus Christ, and walking in the will of God the Father through the spiritual supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.

All of that is rejected for some human (not Jesus Christ) and their talents and abilities or special understanding and knowledge. When evangelists want to use the unhealth focusing on superheros instead of taking the entire thing to the Bible and explaining the Bible, then you lose the focus that God wants.

Is a superhero somebody with tights or leotards? Do they have super human, supernatural powers, and therefore they can “save us”? Paul exhorts Christians to be followers of Christ.

See my Tracts

The Bible makes the point that humans are very impressionable with what they see, hear, and experience. But you will never see Christ, Paul, John, etc. presenting themselves or the gospel with fantasy. Christ used parables a lot in his teaching style. But the essence of a parable is that it compares two things, a real thing in the world that people easily understand to teach a spiritual lesson or principle that is rather difficult to understand without this comparison.

In the time of the New Testament, there was a large body of secular writings that exalted individuals. But Christ was never exalted by saying Jesus is like Cesar. Jesus is King of kings, and Lord of lords, but the examples,

Modern Forms of Evangelism and Ministry