We
go for Evangelism and we convince people to come to Jesus not necessarily
winning them by the Power of God. I know the tracts are serving us a guide but
our ultimate guide is the Holy Spirit. We go and depend so much on the tracts
that we end up not winning them to Jesus but we convince them to come to
church, so this person hasn’t really encountered the transformative ability of
the Holy Spirit through the Word. So, they will come to church for like a week
or more and because they are not transformed something else can convince them
to change their minds. We know a change is a temporal incident but
transformation is an irreversible Change. We invest so much money but we invest
less involvement of the Holy Spirit who is the primary focus for our Evangelism.
So, we will start praying into the Evangelism only when it’s about a month to
the actual thing. That’s not how investment works, the more the time the more
it matures, so if really, we want to see transformation in our Evangelism and
Church growth, we must start investing and involving the Holy Spirit as soon as
we conceive the idea that we want to embark on Evangelism. Not that we plan for
6 month and in the 7 month we invite the Holy Spirit to come and approve
everything that we have planned. They had the experience but Jesus told them to
wait till the coming of the Spirit for He will give them that Power to witness,
but many at times we go for Evangelism and use our experiences neglecting the
leading of the Spirit. Jesus and the woman at the well was a form of Evangelism
but before Jesus would say anything about who He was, He had to draw the
woman’s attention to something which will ignite her faith to accept His
Message(John 4:1-42). So, by the Word of Knowledge He told the woman all that
she has ever done and this led to her Salvation; many at times that person that
we are witnessing to that Jesus loves them, another person just left before we
came telling her the same thing. We need the leading of the Holy Spirit and not
our experiences though sometimes it helps. We make people depend so much on the
tracts and feel that that the main source by which they can evangelize but we
should rather point them to the Holy Spirit. He gives Power to our messages
else we will always convince people who are not convicted from sin. So, they
will come and still be sinning and even worst, they will even go back when
something more convincing gets their attention.
Also,
we go and when these people are won, we leave them in the hands of people that
are not that well experienced. When these people are truly won, we should
understand that they are sheep and lambs that needs direction, but how can
someone who doesn’t even know their direction show this direction. Many at
times the people that we leave these souls in their hands are even struggling
from certain issue so some of them even end up causing these new converts to
err and leave the church. Some even end up having their way with them because
they themselves are also struggling with sin; they are not that strong and not
that experienced in handling converts. Some too are too harsh on them not
knowing that they are lambs and sheep, so they need to be cared for and tended
with patience. Therefore, we go and win these souls and the people we hand them
over to scatter them back to the world because they themselves, either some are
even not converted, some are struggling with sin, some have no knowledge on how
to train and disciple these ones, some are also too harsh and treat them as
goats instead of sheep. With this said, before we go for evangelism, we should
make provision for those whom we will be handing over the souls to, they need
revival too, they need knowledge too, they need to be imparted too, they need
to be anointed too so that they can handle these new converts with care for
them not to err and leave. Just as I said, some of them are even foxes in sheep
clothing, they will end up devouring the harmless sheep that have been brought.
We need to mentor and train these people as well making them good shepherds so
that they can handle the sheep when they are handed over unto them. We must
know their state before we assign these sheep to them and not just hand them
over thinking we have done our parts. I tell you; many will still go back
because there is no true shepherd to lead them aright.
Also,
we go for Evangelisms and we do things very different. What do I mean by very
different? We go to some of these villages, we use so much instruments, we play
movies, we demonstrate gifts of the Spirit and the Power God. As we know, all
these things working together caused some of the souls to come to Christ,
though they were convicted by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit used any of these
means to draw them to Himself because we lifted Him in these things. But when
these souls are converted and come to that church or society that we joined to
do the evangelism, these places seem dry. No gifts of the Spirit, no
instruments and even if there are, no one to play them, no movies again, no
demonstration of the Power of the Holy Ghost. And because the Holy Spirit used
some of these things to draw them, it means their souls are drawn to God
through some of these things. So, they will come to the church for some time
and later we will see them chasing after other churches who have what we used
to draw them. We shouldn’t start what we can’t finish, we start and other
churches finish it. As we went to do the evangelism and crusades for them to
come to Christ, we should maintain that in one way or the other to sustain them
as well. We have to invest a lot if indeed we want to see a transformation in
some of these village societies that we join hands to evangelize the people in
that village. We should make sure we bring on double hands that after that we
can get instruments for these church and train people in the church to play
them keeping the church vibrant there as well. Many at times we go and these
churches have keyboards and drums but no one to play them as good as we played
when we went to worship with them. We should train people to play these
instruments, we should get people in that same society, disciple them and
impart them; so that even when we leave, they can also stand and do what we do
that made the people come to Jesus. We should teach them the Word and invite
the Spirit to dwell in them so He can teach them always. So that even when we
leave, they can teach others the Word as well. They can disciple others as
well, they can demonstrate the Gift of the Holy Spirit and His Gifts as well.
We
should also raise Prayer Towers for them because the souls that we win, they
know Prayer and Word will help them grow but there is no avenue in that society
we went to visit that can give them that chance and lead them to do that. So,
they will come to church on Sundays and when it’s Fridays they go for Prayers
and other programs in other churches, and by the time we realize they have
become members there. If they say they wants hot Prayers, we do some as a
church so why can’t we do some for them to stay then as time goes on, we teach
them the types of Prayers there are. So, they know that it’s not always that it
should be hot Prayers but there are many other kinds. We should raise a prayer
tower for them so they can be praying for the church and the new souls and also
be an avenue for members to pray and get revived daily, weekly or monthly. We
should also teach them our way of doing services that makes it very loving and
vibrant because some of these societies, how they do their services if a new
convert comes this Sunday, it’ll be hard for them to come the next.
Finally,
we should be checking up on them and be praying for them. We should be checking
up constantly to know that the Work we did is still ongoing. If it’s not, what
can we do to help, if it is what can we do to encourage them the more. But we
leave these villages and that’s all, we target another place. We gather and
allow the devil to scatter. Let us put in More Work as we Allow the Holy Spirit
to the Ultimate Source of Everything.
(Holy
Spirit Inspired – HSI)
Ebenezer
Godly Bruce,