Make no mistake. When God calls an apostle to
establish a church in a territory, He expects the entire
congregation to embrace Jesus Christ’s prophetic declaration in Acts
1:8. That is, He expects believers to receive the power of the Holy
Ghost to witness to the lost in its type of Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria and the uttermost parts of the region. God expects us to
reap the harvest. In fact, He not only expects it He commands it.
But can the church accomplish the Great Commission with its present
state of soul-winning operations? A thousand times “No!” The
apostolic reformation is making it clear that it is not Scriptural
for the set-man to do all the ministry work in his local church
single-handedly, nor will this world be won with a handful of
traveling evangelists. What must we do then? The answer lies in
building God-designed evangelistic ministry teams. God has a
spiritual blueprint for recruiting, equipping and deploying teams of
ordinary believers into the harvest fields and we can find success
in following it.
The first step in our evangelism team-building blueprint is
recruitment. Follow the example of Jesus Christ. One might say He
recruited 12 men for His evangelism team. He identified them through
deep prayer and today’s church leaders should ask God to reveal team
member candidates in the same way (Psalms 2:8). Practically
speaking, team members should be local church members who are of
good moral conduct with a teachable spirit and a willingness to work
alongside others.
The next step is identifying where each recruit fits on the team.
Regardless of the harvest strategy, we need team members to fulfill
the practical and spiritual needs of evangelistic outreaches,
including scouters to locate ministry sites, intercessors to
identify strongholds in the neighborhood, administrators to plan the
event, outgoing personalities to engage the lost, and pastoral and
teacher types to follow-up to encourage and disciple new converts
after the outreach. Asking team members what they enjoy doing helps
pinpoint their ideal role on the team. For example, those with a
gift of gab may serve well as door-to-door evangelists. Those with a
creative bent could serve to create decorations for the ministry
site. Teammates with a gift of organization make good
administrators.
Once we've matched talents with roles – and determined that our team
members have a willingness to be trained and sent forth (Luke 10:2)
– they must be equipped to invade the territory (Ephesians 4:12).
Prepare team members for the spiritual resistance against them and
against the lost souls they are trying to reach. Successful
evangelism teammates understand that their primary purpose is to
know God and to make Him known to others. Loving God with all of
their heart, mind, soul and strength and loving their neighbor as
they love themselves is a type of spiritual warfare, and, like any
level of spiritual warfare, requires an understanding of the
believer’s authority. Making sure each team member knows and
understands the will of God, their purpose and mission, authority,
responsibilities and the benefits of rescuing lost souls will
empower them to succeed.
Finally, we must focus on the details in our spiritual blueprint
that deal with actually sending our teams into the harvest fields.
Team members must have a predetermination that nothing will stop
them from accomplishing their mission. That requires an apostolic
grace, fortitude and overcoming faith. We can overcome our enemy by
the blood of Jesus, the word of our testimonies and by laying our
lives down for others (Revelation 12:11). Apostolic boldness must be
balanced with gentleness and the ability to minister to even the
most unpleasant unbelievers so that God may give the deceived
repentance and an acknowledging of the truth so they may escape the
snare of the devil (2 Timothy 2:24-26).
What are the benefits of building, equipping and sending
evangelistic teams into the harvest fields? God’s Kingdom will come.
Strongholds of righteousness will replace works of darkness. Crime
rates will drop. The community is exposed to the local church. The
team members will experience a total heart change. There will be a
greater boldness to witness as they mature into leaders who can flow
well with one another in hands-on ministry.
So leader, let the equipping process begin in your local church.
When you do it according to Jesus’ pattern with committed team
members who desire to make God known despite the personal expense,
He can show Himself mighty through miracles, signs and wonders that
bring the lost home.
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