5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe- as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labour. 9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.

10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:5-11

Evangelism

As we look to live to honour and please God, praying for and speaking to a lost world, we find ourselves involved in three distinct, but connected, kinds of relationship. We can call them sowing, growing and going.

As we look to live our relationships in conformity with God's Word, some will notice that we live differently and will be naturally curious as to why we do so. This may lead a few to ask us what makes us different (Colossians 4:5,6). Others will not ask us, but will be curious none the less. How can we help give them answers to the questions they don't know how to ask?

As Christians we are not living our lives without purpose. God is working by his Spirit, in and through his people, to bring about the good, perfect and pleasing plan he purposed before the beginning of time (Romans 12:1,2; Ephesians 1:11, 2 Timothy 1:8,9). God's plan, his power and his kindness should give us confidence to join him in the work of making his Gospel known. God is always at work through his Word and his Spirit in the hearts of his people (Romans 8:28; Philippians 2:13).

One part we have in this may be seeing the effect our lives have on the hearts of those who know us, by turning them into fertile soil (though God does use our godliness to harden people as well- 2 Corinthians 2:14-6; Philippians 1:27,28). It's God's work by his Word and his Spirit, but he chooses to use people as he does it. There are many people around us whose hearts have been softened or whose curiosity has been raised by knowing Christians other than ourselves. We won't know this unless we speak to them. They won't be able to associate our goodness with God unless we tell them we are Christian. Although our part in the team-work of the Gospel starts with living lives worthy of the Gospel, this is only the start, we need to look to learn how to be sowing the Gospel. This is actually part of living our lives shaped by the Gospel. It will involve taking initiative and speaking with people about the Gospel.

So far we have been looking at an important aspect of our relationship to God. He has chosen to make us part of his plan and chosen to make us fellow workers in making his plan happen. Evangelism and church planting start with God and his plan, they are based on what Jesus' did- dying on the cross and rising again- and they include God's ongoing work through his Word and his Spirit. The Bible was written under the inspiration of the Spirit (1 Cor 7:40, 14:37, 2 Peter 1:20-21, 3:15-16), we understand it by the illumination of the Spirit (John 14:26, 16:13-15, 1 Cor 2:11-13) and we are enabled to respond rightly to it by the indwelling of the Spirit (Romans 8:13,14, Galations 5:22-23). God's Word and his Spirit work together. The first steps in evangelism and church planting are:

Step 0 God's Eternal Plan
Step 1 Jesus' Death and Resurrection
Step 2 The Work of the Holy Spirit (especially through God's Word, the Bible)
Step 3 Our 'Living-Out' the Gospel

It doesn't stop with God- Father, Son and Spirit- nor with our 'Gospel' living. Part of Gospel living is joining God in his work. It involves us in relationships not only with God but with other people. Firstly, it involves us in relationships where we are sowing the Gospel.

Sowing

2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. 5 Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
Colossians 4:2-6

Now that we have our work in evangelism placed in it's Biblical context, let's think Biblically and practically about that work. The first ingredient of evangelism is prayer. Just as God chooses to use our words to others in achieving his purposes, so he chooses to use our words to him (Colossians 4:2-4). In theory God saves people as they respond to the spoken message of the Gospel and this happens with or without our prayers. However, in my experience, those I've seen saved, and are who are still perservering, were prayed for before, during and after their conversion. While it is wrong, and belittles God's sovereignty, to suggest that people can't be saved unless we pray for them, it is presumptuous to expect people to be saved if we aren't praying.

The first ingredient of our role in evangelism is prayer, the second is proclamation (Colossians 4:3,4). As we have already considered, living godly lives is part of preparing people to hear the Gospel but it is not actually explaining the Gospel to them. Without hearing the Gospel, people will not be saved (Romans 10:14). Opportunities to explain the Gospel will come even without us looking for them (Colossians 4:5). However, there are often more opportunities than we realise and there is also a lot we can do to make opportunities happen that wouldn't happen without our commitment to love people by making them happen.

Together, prayer and proclamation, are the key elements in our relationships of sowing the Gospel.

What opportunities to share the Gospel have just fallen into your lap, so to speak?

What opportunities have you seen taken by people that you wouldn't have thought of for yourself?

As with so many things, there are more options than other constraints allow. If it weren't for some of these constraints, what initiatives do you think you could take to bring people 'under the sound of the Gospel'?

Growing

24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. 25 Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another- and all the more as we see the Day approaching.
Hebrews 10:24,25

The Gospel is about relationships. It is about our relationship with God but it has consequences for our relationships with other people. Reflect on the ten commandents for a moment (Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:6-21). It has often been noted that the first four have to do with our relationship with God and the rest to our relationships with other people. Our relationships with others reflect our relationship with God. If we are careless of who God is and what he is like, how much more will we be careless of other people. If we know and love God for who he is and what he is like, we will seek to treat other people, who are made in God's likeness, more appropriately also (Genesis 9:6, James 3:9). Right relationship with God will lead to us growing in other relationships.

We can't be growing in our relating without actually relating. Relating involves behaving in certain ways, and making decisions to behave in certain ways. The differences between people become more clear as we come to know them longer or closer. As we become aware of the differences between people, we have opportunity to serve people in ways appropriate to their differing needs or desires. For us to be growing in our relationships we need to be meeting together and need to 'not give up meeting together.' As with sowing, we need to be taking initiative to spur one another on towards love and good deeds.

Growing relationships are what church should be aimed at promoting. The way for church to promote growing relationships is to teach the Gospel (Ephesians 2:8-10) and the whole Bible (2 Timothy 3:16). Sowing and growing are both the fruit of God's work through his Word and his Spirit. In fact, wherever you find people relating on the basis of God's Word, there you have a church- small or temporary as many may be.

In what ways have you changed as a result of deciding to trust and follow God's teaching in the Bible?

What have your church, other Christian groups and individuals done that has helped you in grow in these ways?

What could you do to help others to grow?

Going

The reason I left you in Crete was that you might straighten out what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.
Titus 1:5

By the term 'going' we don't mean leaving the faith! We don't mean simply being blown around from place to place as the concerns and pressures of this world would carry us either. By 'going' we mean a deliberate intention of moving out to reach people with the Gospel. We can and should do this individually and we can and should take advantage of 'worldly' movements- job or marriage- to take the Gospel to new places and new people. However, there is an important place for, and advantage in, planning our 'going'.

It is possible to be a lone-ranger kind of evangelist. This has been seen in the lives of some notable Christians. However, most successful evangelism has involved Christians working in teams. In fact, if evangelism is sucessful, we see new believers joining evangelists in the work of evangelism. Successful evangelism leads to church-planting. In the quote above, we see Paul concerned that those converted in Crete be properly looked after. The way he expects this to be organised is by elders taking responsibility for the Christians in each town. The Christian communities formed in this way were simply churches. They may have only involved a dozen people meeting in someone's home, but they were still churches.

The apostle Paul is the obvious Biblical example of an evangelist. He was no lone-ranger. The greetings at the beginning and end of his letters introduce a huge team of fellow workers, who worked with him in his evangelism. The example to beat all examples, however, is, of course, Jesus himself. He worked closely with the disciples. Together they were a travelling church. These are models many Christians follow today. Part of planning their 'going' is working out who they will work with in sowing the Gospel. Not only does successful evangelism result in Christians working together to help one another grow in churches, it starts with Christians working together in praying and proclaiming.

Once we are used to the idea of successful evangelism leading to church-planting, it becomes natural for us to think of the two tasks together. Organising for evangelism includes organising for follow-up. The relationships of follow-up add to the existing relationships in a Christian community and are therefore part of these churches growing. One way follow-up is often organised is putting together a team of leaders whose role will be to share their lives with any new believers, teaching them the Bible systematically and setting them an example of living as a Christian (1 Thessalonians 1:4-10, 1 Timothy 4:9-16). It's a kind of newcomers group. This group is, of course, a mini-church. In some places, Christian organisations train pastors for work in an area and then send evangelists and run missions. Planning evangelism in these cases, clearly means planning for new Christian communities, that is, church planting.

So what should we make of all this? As God works through us in sowing the Gospel, he will be working in other people, turning relationships into gatherings of people who trust in him. These gatherings of trusters are simply churches. As these groups are growing, they will look to be going out to others with the Gospel. Evangelism will see new churches planted and these churches will look to plant new churches. Evangelism and church planting are really the same thing!

What Christian groups have you seen started?

Were they evangelistic?

Why must a Christian group be evangelistic to survive?