Evangelism is a very emotive subject in the modern church and has often been so throughout history. There are many distortions of the truth ready to make us feel comfortable about not evangelising.

Evangelism is "declaring the gospel" by definition. While the word evangelism does not occur in our English or Dutch Bibles it does occur in the Greek New Testament.

This has given rise to some confusion as to what evangelism really is. The word "evangelism" is quite simply the verb of the word "Gospel" or "good news." Evangelism is therefore "to gospel" or "tell good news." The word "evangelism" is inseparable from the word "gospel" and so also inseparable from the content of that gospel.

Therefore, if the gospel is a message with specific verbal content, then it follows that evangelism is making the specific verbal content of that message known. That is what the believers did in the first century. They went and preached the gospel everywhere they could. Indeed, "preach the gospel" is the way the Greek word for "evangelise" is often translated in the English Bible. If you change the normal understanding of evangelism you also imply change to the message you bring. This is unacceptable.

God through Paul says that people will be saved when they call on the name of the Lord. He asks how could people possibly call on the Lord if they do not believe in him. And then he asks how could they believe in the Lord if they have never heard of the Lord. Then he makes the obvious observation that they cannot hear unless someone tells them. This is what evangelism is - telling people the good news and not anything else.

Romans 10:13,14

The job of telling the lost about Jesus is the primary service task of the saint regardless of his spiritual gift. A large part of our job in OAC is to challenge and equip the saints to fulfil their responsibility in this area.