“The only hope for the world is for laborers to go to them with the gospel of salvation, and having won them to the Savior, not to leave them, but to work with them faithfully, patiently, painstakingly, until they become fruitful Christians savoring the world about them with the Redeemer’s love,” wrote Robert Coleman in The Master Plan of Evangelism.
“The only hope for the world is for laborers to go to them with the gospel of salvation, and having won them to the Savior, not to leave them, but to work with them faithfully, patiently, painstakingly, until they become fruitful Christians savoring the world about them with the Redeemer’s love,” wrote Robert Coleman in The Master Plan of Evangelism.
Read the previous eight articles about Jesus’ plan for world evangelization online at www.baptistmessage.com. Search for “evangelism.”
Jesus started with 12 men.
At the same time that he spread God’s love to the masses, he developed these 12 to do what he was doing.
They watched him, listened to him, observed him, learned from him, and then he sent them out on a short-term assignment.
They came back and reported in. Jesus fine-tuned them to be even more effective, and sent them out again.
They returned and reported in; he fine-tuned them some more. When the day came for Jesus to ascend into heaven, were the disciples ready to evangelize?
“What really counts in the ultimate perpetuation of our work is the faithfulness with which our converts go and make leaders out of their converts, not simply more followers,” Coleman wrote. “The test of any work of evangelism … [is] the effectiveness with which the work continues in the next generation. Similarly, the criteria on which a church should measure its success is … [by] how many Christians are actively winning souls and training them to win the multitudes.”
The early church proved Jesus’ plan for world conquest worked, Coleman wrote.
But in time, leaders turned to the easier task of engaging the masses rather than making disciples. It’s not that Jesus’ plan no longer works, Coleman wrote. It’s just been ignored.
What’s needed today? “[B]etter men and women who see his vision and feel his passion for the work … who want only for Christ to produce his life in and through them ….,” Coleman wrote. [W] hen it is carried through by his strategy, the gates of hell cannot prevail against the evangelization of the world.”