Thursday, July 18, 2013

A True Biblical Evangelist In Modern America


I was reading in my devotions one morning  when I came across this passage in  Luke 10:2-4 NIV. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.  Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.  Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

    A few weeks ago I meet brother Lawrence. I will spare you the details on how we meet, but we did and I have since  spent some time with him in the neighborhoods.  Money never come into play at all. Brother Lawrence calls himself a street preacher. I've yet to see him preach on the streets, but I've heard about it and I am amazed. He has told me many stories of him and Jesus in the streets as well. The actual preaching on the street aspect however is not the part that I see as the worker working in the harvest, but rather everything leading up to it.

      The first thing is that nobody is a stranger and he knows how to engage people quickly and as well seems to determine even faster if they are ripe for the harvest or not. He invites, inquires, challenges and connects. He is always looking for a person of peace that will welcome him and guide him to the local harvest field. He greets people for who he sees they will be in Christ and not how they are without Him.

    The second thing is that brother Lawrence knows where to find the harvest in a community or how to inquire where to find the harvest in a community. He does not look for the wealthy or the well to do, yet God can easily put them in his path as well. Brother Lawrence looks for the least of these in the area.

This evangelist has wisdom and is Spirit Led. Where he goes,  he is led by the  Lord as the Spirit works before him. After 20 plus years of ministry I've seen my fill of the typical self made evangelist who comes to preach to the church crowd , gets paid and moves on to the next church crowd. This evangelist is different and he actually  works in the fields with the church pastor or people and He trust His Father above to meet his needs as he travels along . Now  I know what a true biblical evangelist looks  like. He has no demands or expectations and is targeting lost people in a community verses those already professing Christ ( as weak as they might be).  I discovered  how few biblical evangelist there actual are out there in the highways and bushes of our communities.


       I see now that a traveling evangelist and a traveling revivalist are two completely different calls. What we really see today if at all are revivalist who travel to preach to the saints with occasional conversions of those who are mixed in with the saints.

   Lord grant us more brother Lawrence's in our days who go into the areas of our communities where most people have abandoned. Evangelist who preach the truth without a pulpit or microphone.

The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.

Thanks be to God for the biblical evangelist.