Dever writes, “So far, we have described healthy churches as marked by expositional preaching, biblical theology, and a biblical understanding of the gospel and conversion. That means when churches don’t teach the bible and sound doctrine they become unhealthy” (p. 89).
The next mark of a healthy church that Dever points to is the understanding of evangelism. He asserts that our understanding of “evangelism [should be] shaped by [our] understanding of conversion.” And, it really is, intentionally or not.
I thought this was interesting. “One sign that a church may not have a biblical understanding of conversion and evangelism is that its membership is markedly larger than its attendance” (p. 90). I imagine that this statistic is true in the majority of churches in the Southern Baptist Convention.
The word evangelism is the word that means “to announce good news”. The good news we are to announce is the good news of Jesus Christ, that he died on a cross in our place and for our sins. There are lots of these that we do so that we might have the opportunity to “announce the good news”, but those things must not be confused with “evangelism” itself. These things, in my understanding, go hand in hand as God uses us to spread the gospel and extend his kingdom in the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
I heard someone say one time that evangelism is “sharing the gospel and leaving the results to God.” Since the work of conversion is decisively God’s work and not man’s, this is a good definition for evangelism.
Our response? As the hymn writer said, “tell the good news, tell the good new”!
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