Here's a posting I promised -- The FiveFold Ministry (Part III)

Leadership gifting #3: Evangelist

As we progress in this article, we are starting to move towards some of the ministries that some Christians may not be well-informed of. These leadership positions are nothing new (after all, they come from your Holy Bible), but some Christians who don't know any better would assume that there are only Teachers and Pastors around. A quick search in Christian magazines will reveal the contrary in terms of worldwide Christianity.

So let's come to the Evangelist.

Evangelist = root word "Euangelion", which is Greek for "gospel"
In the same way that "Teacher" = "the teaching person", "Evangelist" thus = "the gospel person".

I think one of the best ways to describe an Evangelist can be seen in the life of Philip (Acts 21:8). Some of the episodes from his early ministry will demonstrate what kind of person an Evangelist is supposed to be:

1. Well-respected, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom (Acts 6:3-5)
2. Able to convey effectively the message about Jesus (Acts 8:6)
3. Uses great signs and wonders effectively to turn people to Jesus (Acts 8:13); some of these signs including casting out of evil spirits and healings (Acts 8:6-7)
4. Preaches baptism as part of repentance from sin and turning to Christ (Acts 8:12-13, cf Acts 2:38, somewhat supported by Mark 16:16)
5. Has extraordinary spiritual experiences--in Philip's case, seeing an angel and being "teleported" by the Spirit across different places (Acts 8:26, 39-40)
6. As with any other elder, able to hear clearly the voice of God (Acts 8:29)
7. Has an adequate knowledge of the Scriptures (Acts 8: 30-33)

Now there are interesting things which can be said about Philip which are worth noting:
1. There is a common notion that Evangelists must be itinerant (i.e. moving from place to place or among different churches). Philip's initial ministry seems to connote this kind of idea, but later at the end of ch 8, you will notice that he settles in Caesaerea. The next time you see him is in Acts 21:8, where he is officially entitled as an Evangelist, but hey, still in Caesearea, and this time with 3 daughters. What we can get from this is that Philip probably travelled from place to place ministering until he got married in Caesearea and decided to settle down there. That didn't stop him from being an Evangelist though--for the length of time that Paul took to finish 3 missionary journeys! So that should help us in accessing an Evangelist--we would suggest that whether an Evangelist is moving from place to place or staying in one location is not so crucial; and in line with what was previously mentioned about elders, even being part-time or full-time is not that crucial either. In line with what we've read, we would suggest that an Evangelist locate himself (whether temporarily or permanently) and distribute his time according to what the Holy Spirit wills, not according to what he wills.
2. This leads me conveniently to my 2nd point: the degree of reliance on the Holy Spirit in Philip's life and ministry. In this last century we've seen many many good evangelists develop, people like Billy Graham, Rodney Howard-Browne, Steve Hill, etc. Check them out. Billy Graham is an interesting one. He initially didn't believe in the infilling of the Holy Spirit, but every message he preached was so full of conviction power, something he attributes to God. He was the presidential advisor for 5 different US Presidents during his ministry. The interesting thing was, in the 90s he heard about the move of God, about how people were falling under the power of God, having joy through holy laughter, etc. So he decided to try it out. He asked a Pentecostal preacher to lay hands on him--and what I like was Graham's statement--"If it's God, I'll know. And if it's Satan, I'll know too, because he won't be able to touch me." The Pentecostal preacher laid hands on Graham, Graham went down under the power, and got up saying, "It's God". =)

The interesting thing is that in this last century, Evangelists started sprouting from both the Pentecostal and cessationist denominations. Pentecostals would have no problem attributing the voice of God to God the Holy Spirit, but cessationists are usually reluctant to take this stance. What I found interesting though, is that even in cessationist Evangelists, they are heavily led by the voice of God: the prompting of God to preach in a certain place, the "burden" for certain people, and the reliance on God to "convict the hearts and minds of people about sin, righteousness and judgment". Well, the conclusion is rather obvious, actually--both are correct: they are both relying on God. After all, whether they realise it or not, the God they are relying on is none other than the Holy Spirit Himself. Jesus specifically said that the Holy Spirit is the one responsible for convicting the hearts of men about sin, righteousness and judgment--about convincing them to believe in Jesus.

So whether they realise it or not, Evangelists from both sides are actually descendants of Philip, who left a legacy in terms of reliance on the voice of God (the Holy Spirit). And I would encourage all future would-be Evangelists to do the same.

(Btw, I'm purposely leaving the "bad sheep" TV-evangelists out of the discussion. Too much mixture of good and bad in my opinion. We should have an online discussion about how you guys feel about these people.)

3. Did you notice that Philip's ministry was very marked by being "full of the Spirit"? This is a convenient time for me to discuss this particular phrase. I should start with another phrase first: being "filled with the Spirit". Being filled with the Spirit is where the Holy Spirit comes upon you in power (Acts 1:8). The result?

i) A transformation of life, even of personality (look at the changed Peter)
ii) A tremendous spiritual growth spurt, demonstrated in:

• increased love for Jesus
• increased love for the Scriptures and prayer
• manifestations caused by the power of God--this is important because it initiates you into the spiritual realm and causes you to be sensitive and aware about the unseen;
  
• increased faith
• with increased faith, increased authority (to declare God's will, e.g. Peter in Ananias and Sapphira)
  
• increased ability to take rejection and persecution for the sake of Jesus
• spiritual gifts: God-given supernatural abilities which you were personally not capable of before.

As an analogy, let's take puberty. Without puberty, you were still a human being: you had 2 eyes, a nose, a mouth, you were able to move, talk, disobey and annoy your parents. :D So let's take the Christian that has not yet been filled with the Spirit. He is a child of God, loves Jesus, reads the Word, prays, and does what he can to follow Christ. That's all good and true. But with puberty, kids change. Voices deepen, characteristics that make people attractive appear, intellectual thought is stimulated and deepened, the development of the emotions rapidly increases pace (through mood changes and listening to music); the social aspect develops, where there is a stronger need to belong and find identity more than before; and in general, a deeper appreciation (or even struggle) of life as a human being. Same it is with the infilling of the Holy Spirit: when the Holy Spirit fills a person, the person changes. Suddenly all the words of Scripture "come to life". Suddenly God, and his presence, become very very real to you. Your spiritual "muscles" start to develop: you begin to tear down the works of the enemy, you find new ways of helping others in God, and even your spiritual "voice" starts to deepen, so to speak: you have a newfound sense of authority over the sin and struggles in your life and are able to command demons and strongholds to exit your life. Your knowledge of the Scriptures is stimulated--whereby God himself reveals the words of the Scripture to you in a more accelerated fashion than before. It's not that you've never had this before: it's just that you have never grown THAT fast. Your love for the church and the people of God deepens. And, above all, you develop an insatiable taste for the experience of God as he is: other-worldly, wholly other, "how unsearchable his ways and thoughts"--previously unsearchable, but now for once you have had a glimpse of his glory and his personhood and there is no looking back. Like Moses, for the first time you saw His glory: only that instead of just seeing the back, you have the promise of seeing more and more of the Front. Unlike Isaiah, who said "Woe is Me!" and had to have his lips cleansed, you stare brazen at His glory, all your shame covered by the blood of the Lamb, to see the Father's loving face in the fullness of its brightness and splendour. And then you realise, probably for the first time in your life, what it truly means to experience Him in you: such an intimacy, such an interwovenness, not theoretical but experiential, not limited but freely given to all who will partake of him. And yet that initial infilling is not the be-all and the end-all. As He fills you more and more, your sense of identity is even more interwoven in Him; your experience of Him grows that much stronger and powerful. You begin to realise the truly supernatural nature of your God, and that you have merely touched the iceberg in terms of knowing who He really is. Knowing Him becomes the lifetime quest, to know the unknowable, to search the unsearchable, the One who Is and Is to Come.

"And the things of the earth
Will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace."

And this, is merely to be filled with the Spirit, not yet even to be "full of the Spirit".

This is a good time to stop. And a good time to pray. =)

To be continued.