Monday, April 16, 2012

Ten Commandments for Evangelists

1. Thou shalt not engage in shameless self promotion, as if you deserve the glory that God alone deserves.

2. Thou shalt not make an idol of evangelism. God deserves worship, not His work.

3. Thou shalt not give the enemies of God occasion to blaspheme. Reaping the results of being a jerk for Jesus is not persecution, it is defamation of God's character by your actions.

4. Thou shalt keep the Sabbath holy by taking opportunity to rest, worship and serve in the local church. This means your local church, not someone else's.

5. Submit to authority. This includes police officers, local church leadership, and the leadership of evangelism teams that you agree to submit yourself under by joining their outreaches, accepting their hospitality, etc. If you cannot submit, you cannot (and should not) lead.

6. Thou shalt not murder a heckler in your heart. He is not your enemy.

7. Thou shalt not preach against sexual sin while you are looking at internet pornography, having sex before marriage or cheating on your spouse. Yes, it needs to be said. In this case, hypocrite is spelled Y-O-U.

8. Thou shalt not steal time from your family to devote to evangelism. If you care more about the souls of strangers than you do for your family's, you are worse than an infidel.

9. Thou shalt not lie about the size of your crowd, the work of your ministry, the number of conversions, or your time with the Lord.

10. Thou shalt not covet a full time evangelism ministry. If God wants you to have it, He will give it to you without sending you into debt.

7 comments:

Lance said...

11th Commandment, you shall not steal someone else's heckler! :)

Lisa said...

Amen! Very well said!

Scott Autry said...

I wrote something similar once: http://www.fishforchrist.com/fishin-stories/entry/just-bloggin-10-reasons-to-not-evangelize

Allison Crawford said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Allison Crawford said...

This was very well written and something I hope many will adhear to. Thanks for posting Jon, appreciate this and pray God will use it to accomplish His good and perfect will in the lives of His people.-Crawdaddy

Linda said...

Amen, we have to judge ourselves before a Holy, Righteous, Just God first before we go around judging others.

It's so easy to see others faults and not our own especially the obvious sins. Oh, if we would learn the necessity of getting down on our knees -if it's at least obeisance in our hearts before God and repent of our sins

Thanks

Jeff Rose said...

I Love It Jon, we have way to often crafted our "Outreaches" into confidence courses, instead of true Christ motivated proclamation.