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1.1 Growing Up charted the serious numerical decline of our church and concluded that

there is no quick-fix, no simple human solution to reverse this downward spiral. (1.14). The report recalled the initiatives in mission that had been attempted over the years but noted that the United Reformed Church as a whole has sometimes seemed uncomfortable with the word ‘evangelism’: (2)

1.2 A resolution at the 1998 General Assembly called on local churches, District Councils, Synods and the Life and Witness Committee (DSW) to engage in particular activities to encourage evangelism. A year later the Growing Up report challenged the Life and Witness Committee to sharpen its focus to help the people to become more effective in its witness of proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom. (7.2)

1.3 The Life and Witness Committee believes that Growing Up challenges us to confront our church’s perceived reluctance to engage in evangelism. Evangelism Enablers have begun the work of bringing evangelism within our acceptable vocabulary and have helped many to see that evangelism is not an activity best left to those on the fringe of the church in the hope that if we ignore them, they will go away. Local churches, District Councils and Synods all need help if they are to come to the place where they regard evangelism as a core activity of the Church. As ever, the Holy Spirit has anticipated our need. We believe he has always been calling and equipping men and women as evangelists. It is to our shame that we have not always known what to do with those who have been so called.

1.4 This report is offered in the hope that it will encourage us to grow up to the ministry of evangelists within the church and that it will lead us to the following actions:

i. to recognise the evangelists in our midst,

ii. to release them for this specific ministry,

iii. to support them as they speak the truth of the Gospel in missionary situations and as they encourage us to become more credible witnesses where we are.

2 The wider picture

2.1 The Decade of Evangelism put the evangelistic task firmly on church agendas. If the need in earlier years was to call people back to faith, the need today is for forms of primary evangelism which start much further back and assume nothing. We have entered a new missionary era which makes the importance of discovering, developing and deploying those within the church who have evangelistic gifts a vital and urgent need.

2.2 In 1995 a working party, commissioned jointly by the Churches Together in England Group for Evangelisation and the Evangelical Alliance, published a report entitled Evangelists and the Local Church. At the same time the Church of England was engaged in developing a proposal for a College or Fellowship of Evangelists to give recognition and support to those working as evangelists at national level within that denomination. Other churches, including the United Reformed Church, have been involved in joint conversations about how these developments might be applied within the different Free Church contexts. This paper draws heavily on Conference 2000 report of the Methodist Church and we are grateful for their permission to use it in such an extensive form. What follows is an attempt to explore what all this might be saying to us for the life of the United Reformed Church.

3 THEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

3.1 All mission is God’s mission. The Methodist Conference report of 1985 entitled Sharing in God’s Mission put it thus: ‘There is only one mission to the world that matters and that is God’s continuous activity of caring for and reaching out to all that he has made. The church engages in true mission when it shares in God’s one mission to the world. God’s love is expressed not just for the church but for the world, and our mission is not so much to draw people into the church as to initiate them into the Kingdom of God.’ The report went on to say: ‘By mission we mean any way in which Christians are sent to share in experiencing and expressing that love. It involves evangelism since God has declared his desire for all mankind to know and love him. It includes social caring for God’s mercy reaches out especially for the poor and needy. It incorporates the political struggle for justice in our society because God intends men and women to live at peace together. These three do not exhaust the missionary task, neither are they alternatives in our mission, for they belong inextricably together. They are imperatives, not options’

3.2 This understanding has been well articulated in ‘The Five Marks of Mission’

1. To proclaim the good news of the Kingdom

2. To teach, baptise and nurture new believers

3. To respond to human need by loving service

4. To seek to transform unjust structures of society

5. To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, to sustain and renew the life of the earth

And much work is rightly being done to encourage the whole church in understanding and applying these principles in the whole of life

3.3 There is a breadth and flexibility about approaches to mission in the New Testament. Evangelism is not itself a biblical word at all. However, evangelists are referred to three times (Acts 21:8, Ephesians 4:11 and 2 Timothy 4:5); the verb euaggelizein (to evangelise) occurs frequently, especially in Luke-Acts and Ephesians; and the cognate noun euaggelion (gospel) is so fundamental that it crops up all over the pages of the New Testament. It is no more plausible to expect in the New Testament writings a clear role for evangelists than it is to look for definitive models for deacons or presbyters. What is beyond question, however, is that in a variety of pioneering and innovative ways the early Christian leaders (whether termed evangelists or not) and the whole Christian community (by their lifestyle and everyday witness) articulated God’s good news in Jesus Christ with such conviction and commitment that many were brought to faith.

3.4 It is clear that evangelists (alongside apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers and those with a variety of other gifts) were equipped and empowered by the Holy Spirit for the church’s mission and ministry and that their gifts were legitimately exercised both inside and outside the church. The contexts in which these gifts are described in the New Testament (Romans 12:4-8; 1 Corinthians 12:27-30; and Ephesians 4:11-13) make it clear that they were intended to function as part of a team, the Body of Christ, and not in isolation. Furthermore, whilst the Holy Spirit clearly gave some gifts as evangelists, the New Testament leaves us in no doubt that all Christians are called to bear witness to Christ and to share their faith with others. To argue for the recognition and use of evangelists in the contemporary church therefore in no way diminishes the calling of the whole church to be a witnessing community. On the contrary, evangelists focus, encourage and enable the vocation of all Christians to witness to God’s grace and power in the gospel.

4 THE UNITED REFORMED CHURCH CONTEXT

4.1 The issue of evangelism and evangelists has been debated within the United Reformed Church since its birth. Unlike some of our ecumenical partners, the United Reformed Church has never had recognised ‘evangelists’.

4.2 And yet we can look to a rich heritage of missionaries and to the former Churches of Christ whose paid ministers, in earlier years, were essentially evangelists with the pastoral duties being the responsibility of the lay leaders. Something of this emphasis was lost with the wholesale ordination of these lay leaders to the Non-Stipendiary ministry of the United Reformed Church.

4.3 However the long awaited ‘Patterns of Ministry’ report presented to General Assembly in 1995 contained much of relevance to this discussion, including a reminder to the church that:

‘It is the responsibility of district councils, in consultation with provincial synods to explore the development of other forms of ministry. Possible examples might be evangelists or district ministers’.

In Resolution 47 Assembly ‘encouraged district councils in consultation with synods and local churches to explore the deployment of all ministry….and the development of a variety of styles of ministry in ways which will stimulate the life of the church, be ecumenically responsible and enable more effective missionary engagement’. This statement at 4.8.2 and Resolution 47a came as a clear call to the church to consider the evangelist as a form of ministry not previously recognised within the structures of the United Reformed Church.

4.4 In 1998 the General Assembly passed resolution 30 which, amongst other things, encouraged ‘local churches to engage actively in evangelism and evangelisation using those with appropriate gifts’. The resolution also encouraged ‘the Discipleship, Stewardship and Witness Committee (now the Life and Witness Committee) to explore ecumenically the possibility of establishing a College of Evangelists’. This exploration is continuing slowly, but it is clear that we need to recognise and identify such people before engaging fully with other denominations on this issue. The committee did not, at that stage, recommend the recognition of the ministry of the evangelist. The present committee, however, feel strongly that the time is right for such recognition.

4.5 Then in 1999 the Growing Up report was prepared and presented to the General Assembly. Whilst it would be wrong to claim this to be a mission strategy for the United Reformed Church, it was certainly an analysis of our situation and a series of stimuli which, it was hoped, would enable the United Reformed Church to grow. Set in the context of the Five Marks of Mission the report, as well as proposing new initiatives, argued that every person within each congregation should be a ‘credible witness’. Proclaiming the good news and bringing others to faith has therefore become the major emphasis for the work of the renamed Life and Witness Committee since the report was passed.

4.6 In recent years the church has begun to appoint people to ‘mission enabling’ type roles. The Southern Synod made an early appointment and other synods and districts have made more recent appointments. These enabling roles are an important step in pursuing the goals of the Growing Up report. An emphasis on mission and witness at significant times such as vacancy visits, oversight visits and vision workshops will be an important feature of any future growth of the United Reformed Church.

4.7 As well as needing people whose gift is to train congregations to fulfil their mission, the Life and Witness Committee suggest the church also needs examples of people working as evangelists. We need to recognise and encourage people within the church who have the gift of an evangelist, and to develop patterns of ministry that will enable them to fulfil their calling. This paper is intended to stimulate discussion as to how that might be achieved.

4.8 The United Reformed Church recognises a variety of gifts and provides for appropriate training and recognition. This report does not seek to raise the ministry of evangelist above other callings but argues that the ministry of evangelist is a valid calling within the church and as such should be recognised and resourced.

4.9 The resourcing of Lay Preachers and Youth and Children’s workers has played a very important part in the life of the United Reformed Church in recent years and the Training for Learning and Serving material is only the latest in a succession of training courses to equip preachers for their task. For many years training has also been provided for workers among children (notably through Kaleidoscope) and theirs has been recognised as a distinctive and important ministry. More recent years have seen the development of the Spectrum training course and official recognition for youth workers. All this is a welcome realisation of the fact that God gives different gifts to different people and that it is the church’s responsibility to discern, develop and deploy those gifts. The recognition and training of evangelists in the life of the church is simply a logical extension of this process whose time has surely come. It has been well said that what a church truly values can be deduced from what sort of people it trains.

4.10 The calling of evangelist is an honourable one in its own right and the church needs to make room for those so called whether as lay workers (paid or unpaid), Elders or Ministers. Nor is the concept of the evangelist to be limited to working among younger people. Evangelists are needed to work among those of every age group.

4.11 Further thought needs to be given to those ordained ministers with evangelistic gifts and how they can be released to more specifically evangelistic forms of ministry without overloading them with the tasks attached to pastoral charge. Even though the deployment process means that stipendiary ministers are a ‘precious commodity’ the national church needs to have situations where its paid staff are working as evangelists. This could be done as some Synods have done, by including in its ministerial figures mission projects which need to be staffed by an evangelist. In addition the United Reformed Church nationally seeks to appoint ‘Special Category Ministers’. It would be entirely appropriate to set aside a number of these projects as requiring an evangelist. These Special Category Ministers could take their place alongside equally necessary hospital chaplains, industrial chaplains etc.

4.12 All of this needs to be set in its ecumenical context. The Methodist Church has begun the process of recognising evangelists. The important report on Diocesan Evangelists prepared by the Board of Mission of the Church of England was unanimously approved by the House of Bishops in June 1999 and published under the title Good News People: Recognizing Diocesan Evangelists (Church House Publishing 1999). The Church of England has now formally established its College of Evangelists (fellowship or network rather than an institution) with the first 25 evangelists commissioned by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in October 1999. Representatives of the Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed Churches have kept in close touch with the Anglican Board of Mission over these developments which have also been the subject of discussion on more than one occasion by the Churches Together in England Group for Evangelisation. Whilst the major denominations each have their own structures and distinctive emphases, the possibility of some form of ecumenical version of the College of Evangelists at some stage in the future could usefully be borne in mind. At the very least we need to learn from each other’s experience of recognising and using evangelists in the life of our respective denominations. Nor should lessons from the World Church be overlooked: A look at the place of evangelists in our partner churches of CWM, and black majority churches in the UK, will play a part in this process and we might learn from their experience.

5 QUESTIONS TO BE EXPLORED

5.1 Mention of the word ‘evangelist’ unfortunately opens the flood-gates for all sorts of stereotypes, misconceptions and caricatures, some of which, indeed, have resulted from over-zealous and inappropriate approaches to evangelism by the evangelists themselves. In particular, during much of the 20th century the word was perhaps predominantly associated with big campaigns, mass evangelism and well-known names which resulted in local evangelists, especially those gifted in reaching people on a more one-to-one basis, being overlooked or marginalised. A further problem has been that evangelists, finding little opportunity for employment within the denominational structures, have often gone to para church agencies or become freelance entrepreneurs. Whilst this has continued to affirm the necessity for evangelism, we have not always known what to do with evangelists, or at least how to use them formally within our structures. Yet those called and gifted in this way represent different theological persuasions (we must resist the idea that one has to be an evangelical to be an evangelist) and a wide variety of approaches: some are preachers, others are more at home in visitation, pastoral evangelism, leading groups, personal faith sharing or working alongside young or older people. Some evangelists travel widely whereas others function within a church or group of churches and are relatively unknown beyond it.

5.2 The place of evangelists in the United Reformed Church undoubtedly raises many questions that need to be faced. We identify the following specific issues:

a. Calling

5.3 It is clear from the New Testament that some are called and gifted as evangelists. Some have argued that their role was purely temporary and limited to the formative years of the church. Yet the need for evangelists in the church remains and the fact that people are still being gifted in that way in the contemporary church cannot be denied.

5.4 We need to recognise the importance of giftedness: being an evangelist is not simply the exercise of a personal interest or enthusiasm, but a response to the calling and equipping of the Holy Spirit.

5.5 We need also to devise ways of testing those called as evangelists, perhaps in ways parallel to the testing of those called to other forms of ministry. Perhaps a distinction needs to be drawn between those who are to be formally employed within the church and those who will serve in a purely voluntary capacity. Yet for both the same criteria will need to be applied. These might include:

i. Active membership of the local church and involvement in its life, worship and witness.

ii. A genuine personal experience of Jesus Christ and a disciplined spiritual life.

iii. A self-evident commitment to the work of evangelism and some understanding of the breadth of approaches and methods which might be adopted.

iv. A mature understanding of the gospel and the way in which it relates to and interacts with individuals and contemporary society.

v. The ability to relate naturally and easily to other people both within and beyond the church.

vi. Proven gifts as a communicator of the gospel and the ability to express its message in a variety of imaginative ways, especially to those unused to Christian insights and vocabulary.

vii. Evidence of some fruitfulness in terms of effectiveness and the response of others to previous evangelistic work.

5.6 The United Reformed Church recognises the right of every local congregation to have access to ordained ministry. Perhaps it is equally important for every local church to have access to an evangelist. If the decline of the church is to be reversed and the gospel is to be spread effectively this possibility certainly needs to be explored further. Yet it should not simply be the prerogative of the evangelist to announce his or her availability to the church. There is much to be said (and clear biblical precedent - see Acts 13:1-3) for the local church taking the initiative, identifying and calling out those within its membership who have evangelistic gifts.

b. Training

5.7 Just as the United Reformed Church has provided training for other forms of service so, too, adequate provision needs to be made for those called as evangelists. There is already a great deal of training on offer through various colleges and courses. Most of it, however, is on mission understood very broadly, rather than specifically on evangelism, and is of a biblical, theological and historical nature without offering the more practical training which is also required by those serving as evangelists. In addition to any courses on evangelism being offered by our colleges, there are those on offer at ecumenical foundations.

The developing relationship between the United Reformed Church (through the Life and Witness Committee) and the national and international ministry of Methodist evangelist Rob Frost might prove useful in providing hands-on experience and training.

5.8 Since evangelists are likely to be working in different ways and at many different levels within the United Reformed Church it is probably unnecessary to insist on any one form of training although there would be great value in producing a basic training course parallel to Kaleidoscope and Spectrum or integrate it within TLS. For now, some way needs to be devised of assessing individual needs and pointing people in the direction of existing training which is appropriate to them and the work they are to do. Such training would need to include the theology and practice of evangelism, contemporary apologetics, cultural awareness (including the inter-faith perspective) and communication skills.

5.9 Training needs to be both initial and continuing. An ongoing opportunity for United Reformed Church evangelists to meet nationally can play an important part here by providing fellowship and support networks, information and training; but training should also be available more locally as with other ministries.

c. Recognition

5.10 It would be appropriate for an evangelist to be formally recognised at the level of church life (local church/District/Synod) in which he/she was to work, but there would need to be some standard form of recognition and authorization which applied to all. This might be helped by devising and authorizing a commissioning service parallel to those now available for other workers, and perhaps also a new Service of Commissioning for special periods of evangelistic outreach by the church. This would have the effect of raising awareness of the appointment and work of evangelists and affording them recognition within both the structural and liturgical life of the church.

d. Accountability

5.11 With official recognition comes the need for ensuring some form of accountability for evangelists. Since this report envisages evangelists as working within the structures of the church at local, District or Synod level rather than independently, this makes the matter of oversight rather more straightforward. It is important from the evangelist’s point of view to have adequate structures for support, guidance and accountability; and it is important from the church’s point of view to have a clear set of procedures for oversight and, if necessary, discipline.

5.12 Evangelists who are ordained Ministers or Elders would have the normal forms of accountability through their District Council and nationally and any other oversight and support structure which was devised in connection with their work. Those employed by the church as lay evangelists should have contracts in line with other workers.

e. Role

5.13 In arguing for the recognition of evangelists in the United Reformed Church it is important to reiterate and underline two points made earlier:

• The task of evangelism is only part of the overall mission of the church (see 1.1) and those engaged in it must see their role in that wider context.

• Evangelism is the task of the whole church (see 1.4). Every local church is called to be a missionary congregation and every Christian is called upon to be a witness to Jesus Christ. Evangelism must not simply be left to the evangelists.

5.14 The evangelist, however, is one who is especially gifted in sharing the Christian gospel with others so as to win a response of faith and has been released and authorized to exercise those gifts. In so doing he or she might act both as an evangelist and as an evangelism enabler - encouraging, training and resourcing others to engage in the churches’ evangelistic task. This raises the question of whether the Evangelism or Mission Enabler comes within the purview of this report, and whether it is essential for such an Enabler also to be an Evangelist. We believe both roles to be important and complementary, and would want both to be embraced in the provisions outlined in the preceding pages.

5.15 The precise work of an evangelist will vary with the nature and requirements of the appointment. It would not be particularly helpful at this stage to list possible projects although hands-on work on a one-to-one level or with specific evangelistic projects is likely to be at the heart of the evangelist’s activity.