Evangelism and Spiritual Warfare, Mentor's Guide, MG08

1 9 4 /

E V A N G E L I S M A N D S P I R I T U A L W A R F A R E

efforts to evangelize is actually stepping on an escalator; you are immediately being taken up to the next floor of follow-up, incorporation, and discipleship in Christian community.

This devotion plays on the analogy in the New Testament between childbearing and nurturing young believers. New converts require the tender, loving care of responsible, nurturing spiritual parents who will feed, cleanse, protect, instruct and befriend them in Christ. This is the plain teaching of the apostles, and goes to the heart of all ministry. Merely making a commitment to see decisions made by the lost is simply unheard of in the New Testament understanding of evangelism and spiritual warfare. The goal of all mission is to present those who believe as mature, godly, and reproducing disciples of Jesus who are able to glorify God to the full because of their holy and Christlike character and participation in community (cf. Eph. 4.9-16). To do less is to define evangelism in a way that does not resonate either with the language of the Great Commission or the examples of the apostles, who poured out their very lives to see that those who were welcomed into the Kingdom grew up to full adulthood in Christ (1 Pet. 2.2; Eph. 2.19-22). The tendency to reduce Christianity to a personalized, existential, and individual private faith is so dominant today that to suggest anything else seems ludicrous or patently unchristian, even cultic. Because of the highly personalized nature of faith today, Christianity appears to have become shaped according to a kind of “Burger King” religion where every member can “Have It Your Way!” that is, the way we desire it. We pick and choose among the various elements of Christian discipleship, and create our own, made-to-order brand of faith that includes only the items and things that I personally appreciate and like. This tendency toward individualized faith has eclipsed the simple, communitarian, body life of the New Testament saints, which in a real sense is the only form of Christianity that is authentically credible . These contacts are designed to get your students to think about the highly privatized and individualized nature of Christian belief and practice. They are set up to help them open up a discussion on both the validity and credibility of this kind of

2 Page 99 Devotion

3 Page 101 Contact