How is a church to equip the saints for evangelism?

Don Hart explains in this video that the modern church needs to realize and understand that as pastors preach and exposit the Scripture, they are preparing the members of the church to go out and evangelize throughout the week.

Many modern churches have become misguided in their application of evangelism. They have become seeker-oriented churches. However, worship is not about man, but about God. It is about doing what is pleasing to the Lord. It comports with the regulative principle.

In the meeting of the church, we worship a perfect God. We prepare saints to go out and do the work of God. We don’t tailor the meetings of the church to show greater concern for unbelievers instead of teaching and strengthening believers who are to evangelize to the lost. We are to worship the One who came to seek and save the lost.

Acts 4:11-12 (NKJV) – “This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Our Lord's last command is our first priority. In the church, in the family, in the city, to the ends of the earth, join us in October for White Under Harvest. The church in some ways may be getting evangelism wrong in how it misunderstands its duty to equip the saints to evangelize as opposed to focusing on evangelism as the heart and center of every single sermon. Now, I want to qualify that. The Lord Jesus Christ and salvation and the message of evangelism and the Great Commission is at the heart of everything that we do as we teach in the church and we need to realize and understand that.

That as we preach in an expository manner, as we go through the scriptures, that we will be speaking the language of evangelism and we will be evangelizing, but we will be preparing the saints, the members of the church, to go out and then be ready to evangelize and the opportunities that they enjoy in their daily lives, in their work, in family interactions, in all the things that happen when the church is dispersed during the week. Many modern churches have become deceived or wrong in their application with regard to evangelism in another way. They have chosen to make evangelism the reason and the explanation that they give for being what many call seeker sensitive churches or seeker oriented churches. Our worship of the Lord on the Lord's day, it is not about man. It's about God.

It is not about what appeals to man and what appeals to the pleasures of those who might need to be evangelized. It is about what is pleasing to the Lord. It is about what is consistent with what we call the Regulative Principle, which is simply a description of God telling us how He wants to be worshiped and giving us order with regard to how He desires to be worshiped. And so in the meeting of the church, we worship and adore a perfect God. We prepare saints to go out and do the work of evangelism.

We don't tailor the meeting of the church to show greater concern for those who we may be seeking than we do for the one who does the seeking. We are there to worship the one who seeks the lost. We are there to glorify the Savior who came to seek and save the lost. That's the focus of the work of the church. And when the church disperses, that's the effective work of evangelism that can be prepared for and the meeting of the church.