"Where there is no vision, the people perish." Proverbs 29:18
OUTREACH
OUR CALLING AND COMMITMENT
A Commitment to Evangelism can be grouped in the three areas that make up the Book of Order’s inferred definition of evangelism: telling the good news, being the good news, and doing the good news. The following focuses on each of the three areas.
Telling the Good News
The church is called to be Christ’s faithful evangelist . . .
(1) going into the world, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all he has commanded. (Book of Order, G-3.0300c).
The Church and its members are called to proclaim the good news of Christ as Lord and Savior for all people. Though each person is at a different place on the journey of faith, all are asked to speak to their experience of Christ. Telling the good news means that members are called to share what they have seen, what they have heard, and what they have experienced on their journey of faith.
Doing the Good News
The church is called to be Christ’s faithful evangelist . . .
(2) demonstrating by the love of its members for one another and by the quality of its common life the new reality in Christ; sharing in worship, fellowship, and nurture, practicing a deepened life of prayer and service under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (Book of Order, G-3.0300c).
Church members’ lives are a demonstration of Christ’s call into fellowship and community. Member growth and nurture, caring for one another, the way all people are included in the life of the church and its decision-making reflect the members’ evangelism lifestyle.
Being the Good News
The church is called to be Christ’s faithful evangelist . . .
(3) participating in God’s activity in the world through its life for others by
(a) healing and reconciling and binding up wounds
(b) ministering to the needs of the poor, the sick, the lonely, and the powerless,
(c) engaging in the struggle to free people from sin, fear, oppression, hunger and injustice,
(d) giving itself and its substance to the service of those who suffer,
(e) sharing with Christ in the establishing of his just, peaceable, and loving rule in the world. (Book of Order, G-3.0300c).
The church is the incarnation of God in the world. Individual members and the church as a whole are called to share God’s love through ministries of compassion, service, sacrifice, and justice.
(From Living the Vision: Commitment to Evangelism, by Douglas A. Wilson, pages 15, 17, 19, 21; Evangelism and Church Development Program Area of the National Ministries Division, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.))