A SAMPLE OF ENDORESMENTS The following are some of the endorsements for Julian’s 900+ page book called Evangelism: Strategies from Heaven In the War for Souls. Some people are daunted by such a big book so Julian made a small book out of each chapter of the 900+ page book. What you are about to read is just one of the chapters of the larger work.
David Cole, YWAM Campaigns Asia/Pacific Board of Regents Chairman University of the Nations.
“This book is one of the most in depth looks at what Evangelism really is (and what it isn’t) that I believe has been written in the last century. I have been so inspired in my own calling through its content and often use it as a text book for teaching and imparting to young leaders in YWAM training courses as well as throughout other parts of the Body of Christ. Thank you Julian not only for such a valuable resource as well as for modeling the outworking of its content in your own life over the past few decades.”
Pastor Mike Smith, Melbourne, Australia
“An incredible book that all pastors should read. I have been a Christian for 28 years and a pastor for many years, and when I picked up this book, I thought, I doubt this will teach me anything new about evangelism. I was so wrong. It has revolutionised my thinking. This is an incredible book that all pastors should read.”
Grant Buchanan LLB, B.Com, Auckland
“The best book I have ever read. I am a solicitor (54) and a partner in a law practice. I unhesitatingly give my endorsement for Julian s book. Indeed, I would rate it as the best book that I have ever read!” Grant Buchanan LLB, B.Com, Auckland
Michael Angulo, Pastor and Church Leader
“Truly a work of Ministerial art. I really like this book and every true evangelist will love it also. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO PUT IT DOWN, BUT WILL BE THINKING WHEN YOU ARE GOING TO READ IT AGAIN! A truly very well written book with good retrospective learning ideas. No true evangelist should be without this book. It is worth what it is worth and it will catapult you into great, deliberate PROVEN, ministry approach. Great book and I highly recommend it. Get this one, you won’t be disappointed!”
Julian Batchelor, M.ed (Hons), B.Th, Dip.T’Ching
Church leaders!
This Is Your Time
To Step Up And Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 5)
Copyright Julian Batchelor, 2016 Evangelism Strategies International Press Auckland New Zealand
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Acknowledgements I owe a lot of thanks to a lot of people for the production of this Mini Series: Sheryl Kampenhout, who transferred a mountain of material from Power Point shows into Word documents and who served and encouraged me in such a loving and kind way; to Matthew Old, a faithful friend and fellow evangelist, who has been a Barnabas. He reached out his hands when the hills seemed steepest, loved me in spite of my failures, stimulated me with his sharp mind, and made me laugh when I wanted to cry; to Janice Teo, and her intercessory prayer team who are as vital to the ministry I direct as the heart is to the body; to the team of editors, including Ken Francis and Julie Belding; to all the financial supporters who have given so generously to me over the years. I especially want to thank Paul and Tina Richards, of Club Physical, owners of a gymnasium chain in Auckland, New Zealand, and Derek van Beynen, who have faithfully sponsored my ministry for over a decade. Few people have the privilege of being able to leave secular work to write and produce resources to further the cause of the evangelisation of the world, and to motivate and equip the Church to do the same. You, and all my other financial supporters, have made this possible; to those I live with who have not seen me for years because I have been locked away in my office writing, I give my sincere thanks. Special thanks to Neil Pollock. To Jenny Windeyer, the graphic artist, who designed the cover of the original 800 page book (which we’ve turned into this Mini Series), and to Jenny’s husband Drew for going beyond the call of duty so that Jenny could focus on this project; to faithful Bernie Anderson who has sacrificed and given way beyond what a leader would expect of a dedicated co-worker; to Eleanor Goodall and Sue and George Jeffrey who epitomise love and true friendship; to the team at ESI for keeping all the various aspects of the evangelism ministry moving forwards whilst I directed most of my time to write this Mini Book Series; for Dr Martyn Bowis who did all the programming for the electronic version of the gospel called “Proclaim it!”; for Henoch Kloosterboeror for producing all the brilliant
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drawings; Dr David Stewart, retired Principal of the Bible College of New Zealand for nearly two decades of encouragement and mentoring; Denise James and Anne Bartley, staff at the Bible College of New Zealand for helping with research; all those who have helped proof read the manuscript and given comment, particularly Dr Marie Sewell, Gill Donald, Gill Lukey, Donna Hansen, Ainslie Vines, Ann Hunter, and Miriam and Ted Martin; to the academic staff of the Bible College of New Zealand for giving me a grounding in theology; for all those who have given financially and sacrificially to pay for specific aspects of the publishing of this Mini Book Series; for my friend Ray Comfort, for his inspiration and encouragement. There are few evangelists today who have journeyed on the road of trial and tribulation to achieve breakthrough as Ray Comfort. For John Stott, the academic evangelist for his coaching and input via his many books. For all the people who we have trained in evangelism around the world who are out there doing it – you are the heroes in the battle for souls; for the many hundreds of pastors, leaders, and lay Christians around the globe who have contributed to my life as a Christian, and to this Mini Book Series; and finally, I thank Jesus Christ, whose amazing grace and love has inspired and kept me. All the revelations in this Mini Book Library about evangelism and the gospel were given by Him – to Him be all the glory.
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How To Read The Mini Books In This Library This Mini Book is one of a Library of 27 Mini Books. The Library is a detailed critique of the battle between light and darkness which is relentlessly raging all over the earth for the souls of men and women. The insights and revelations in each Mini Book are hierarchical i.e. Mini Book Two builds upon Mini Book One, Mini Book Three upon Mini Books One and Two, and so on. Hence, the ideal is to try and read all the Mini Books in the library in sequence. If you skip Mini Books, or even parts of Mini Books, you might miss something vital, and open yourself to misunderstanding or even defeat. Having said this, after you have read Mini Books One to Seven, which are the foundational books in the Library, each Mini Book is designed to stand alone. So, read Books One to Seven first. This is essential. With respect to evangelism, if you follow the advice I am giving here in the pages of each Mini Book, you’ll position yourself perfectly to be used by the Holy Spirit to glorify Jesus in ways you’d not imagined possible. How so? Read the 27 Mini Books in the library and find out. Along with Mini Books 1-7, I suggest you also purchase Mini Book 27, which is the “Evangelism Fitness Test.” This is a diagnostic survey which will tell you the extent to which you have been unwittingly influenced by the devil with respect to evangelism. Sit this test before you read anything. Then do the same test again after you have read all the Mini Books to check to see if all his devices have been thoroughly purged from your mind!
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Church leaders!
This Is Your Time
To Step Up And Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 5)
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evice 76. To persuade a leader that he/she must feel that they must “love God more than anything or anyone else” before obeying Him in evangelism so that when they do start, their motivation is right. A church leader wrote the following: “If I were asked to prioritise three main things I felt God wanted of me it would probably be: 1. Love God above all else Mat 22:37 2. Love others as I love myself Mat 22:38 3. Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel Mk 16:15 Most of the common commentaries of Revelation 21:7 seem to support the position that our first love for God/Jesus is a requirement before any works. New Ungers, Mathew Henry, etc all put the emphasis on our first love with references to 1 Timothy 5:12, Ephesians 1:15 as well as 1 Corinthians 13:2. Everything else seems to stem or flow out of this - our first love. We want our motivation for serving God to come out of our love for 7
Him. If we don’t love him first, our love will be somewhat indifferent. Therefore, before we launch out in evangelism in our church, I first want to focus on having my people love God. Then they will want to evangelise.” How should we respond to this? This pastor wants himself and his church to spend time building up a love for God before engaging in evangelism. This sounds nice, Biblical, and noble but it’s actually just another device. Let me explain. Christian love, as defined in 1 Corinthians 13, is not feelings based. It’s action based. The words used in this chapter to describe ‘love’ are all verbs. In other words, if an action we are about to take will express the love of God in some way (e.g. taking a meal to a hungry person), but we don’t feel like doing it, we are called to carry out the action anyway. In the Bible, God interprets “loving Him” as obeying Him. He says so: “If you love me, you’ll keep my commands” (John 14:21). This pastor is waiting for a feeling. God, however, is looking for people who will take action, irrespective of how they feel. Not only are we to obey Him whether we feel like it or not, but we are to do so when we feel great pain at the thought of obeying Him. Listen to what Jesus said in Luke 9:23: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Picking up a cross was a hard, horrible, painful experience. It was a heavy and burdensome object. In Luke 9:23 Jesus is saying, “You are not going to feel like doing my will each day. Your feelings and my will are going to constantly clash. When they clash you are going to feel like you are picking up a cross and walking to your own crucifixion.” This is not to say that we will never feel like obeying God. There have been many times when I have wanted to obey God, and felt like obeying God. It’s wonderful when this happens. But what happens when He commands us to do something and we don’t feel like it doing it? What then? This is what Jesus in Luke 9:23 is talking about. Let me tease this out a little. In the 1990’s, John Chapman wrote a book about ‘love languages.’ In this book he proposes that men and woman interpret ‘love’ in different 8
ways. The key to loving a spouse, asserts Chapman, is to discover their love language and then focus on loving them accordingly. There are five love languages: 1. Words of affirmation 2. Quality Time 3. Receiving gifts 4. Acts of service 5. Physical touch So for example, if my wife’s love language is (1) above, then as her husband I need to focus on speaking affirming words to her. When I do this, she will interpret my behaviour as “he loves me.” For my wife, the evidence that I love her are the affirming words I speak to her. How does this relate to what the church leader (above) wrote? Jesus has a love language. He says so in John 14:21 and John 15:14 “If you love me, you will obey me.” The evidence of our love for Him is our obedience to His commands. Period. The more time, money, and resources we pour into doing the priority of His will, the more Jesus interprets our behaviour as “they really love me.” You see, if the husband focuses on loving his wife with the other four languages which are not her primary love language, she will not feel so loved by him. He’ll be missing the mark with his love for his wife. In the same way, if we are busy with other aspects of His will, but not about the priority of His will, we too will be missing the mark with Jesus. In fact, we can actually invoke God’s wrath. Look at Matthew 7:21-23 for example. Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly,‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Prophesying, driving out demons, performing miracles are three 9
behaviours that would be classed as “the will of God.” Yet the group of people He is addressing in Matthew 7 incur His wrath. Why? I suggest it was because they were merely picking and choosing what to obey and what not to obey. They were not under authority. Jesus was not “their Lord”. They were their own Lords. As such they never “knew” Him. To truly “know” the Lord is obey His commands. There is one more issue with what this leader wrote that I want to address here. When this leader says “Therefore, before we launch out in evangelism in our church, I first want to focus on having my people love God. Then they will want to evangelise” he is saying “obedience is a natural outcome of feelings.” The truth, as I have already pointed out, is actually the opposite. Obedience, in my experience, results in feelings of love for God. When I obey God in some area with an act of the will (i.e. when I don’t feel like obeying), the warm fuzzy feelings usually follow. After I have obeyed God in something, he anoints me with a feeling of feeling close to Him. I feel happy, joyful, blessed, even like dancing. Sometimes the joy is indescribable. These feelings which follow obedience will lead to a desire for greater obedience, which in turn will lead to greater feelings of being in love with God, which in turn will lead to greater obedience, and so on. Our faith is not ethereal, New Age, or airy-fairy. If the pastor wants to make a priority of loving God, he simply needs to make a priority of doing the priority of God’s will. It’s not complicated. Obedience whether we feel like it or not is central to genuine faith. If Jesus had waited until He felt like walking to His crucifixion, He would never had died on the Cross. The truth is, he sweated drops of blood. Such was the clash between His will and the will of His Father. In the end, He chose His Father’s will over His own: “Not my will Father, but your’s be done” (Luke 22:42). As world renown missiologist Dr George W. Peters quite rightly says: “Obedience is held up as a cardinal Christian virtue and a proof of belonging to God, keeping and doing the commandments of God (1 John 10
2:3-4, 2:29, 3:7, 5:2-4). To the Apostles, obedience is not optional; it’s occupational. It occupies all of their life and commits them in obedience and loyalty to their Lord and Master.” The church leader I quoted would say obedience in the absence of warm fuzzy feelings is legalism. I would say “Not so.” Rather, obedience in the absence of feelings is showing God we love Him, just as the husband who affirms his wife when he doesn’t feel like it demonstrates true Christian love. Some have argued against what I have written here by pointing out that the Early Church waited for power from on high before they launched out in evangelism (Acts 2). True, this happened, but today we already now have the Holy Spirit. He was poured out in our hearts at conversion (Romans 5:5). My experience is that the Holy Spirit empowers us the moment we actually engage a non-Christian to give them the gospel, and not a moment sooner. Those who are waiting for some special outpouring of the Spirit before they get going in evangelism are chasing a rainbow. In short, they are deceived. In summary, the line of reasoning put forward by the church leader I quoted at the beginning of this device is another one of those classic “1% off the truth” arguments. This is how the devil works. He is an angel of light. He uses very Christian sounding arguments and logic, including Scripture, to infiltrate the minds of Christians, including many leaders.
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evice 77. To cause leaders to become out of balance in the expression of their faith.
Who are the truly Spiritual people in the Church? How can we tell? The truly spiritual people in the Church are those who are balanced in their obedience to the whole council of God, as revealed in the Bible. No thinking person would argue with this line of reasoning. Yet, believe it or not, there is an increasing number of Christians who would contest this measure of genuine spirituality. As a consequence of their thinking, world evangelism has taken a nose dive. Let me explain. 11