Mark Cahill has a passion for evangelism in the Church. He speaks to 1000s of college and high school students around the country and his two books have influenced many Christians around the world to share their faith, while also leading many people of different faiths to follow Jesus.
Mark's eNewsletter arrived in my gmail like every month, at which point I always stop whatever I'm doing to see what he's writing about this time. This month was very timely, in fact because I had just read an article on the same topic from New Man Magazine that was in sharp contrast to Mark's biblical understanding.
I will share more about this New Man article in another post, but I want to spend some time on Mark's Newsletter, because this is a critical issue facing the church here in America. Mark titled his newsletter
"Andy Stanley Says We Must Earn...", and right away I knew who Andy Stanley was because he is the head pastor of a large mega church in Atlanta called North Point Community Church, where Passion Conference's Founder, Louie Giglio has been on staff in the past (check out
268generation.com for more info). Andy Stanley is also the son of a well known baptist preacher, Charles Stanley.
I have heard Andy Stanley speak at Passion's Thirsty Conference and have also been encouraged by his book
How Good is good enough?. But, after what Mark shared from a USAToday, I was discouraged by Andy Stanley's comments regarding evangelism. Mark writes about this
USA TODAY Article:
"One thing I do now when I hear quotes from Christian people is to see if the quote can be backed up with Scripture. One pastor told me one of the mistakes we regularly make with Christians is that when we listen to them we put our guard down instead of putting our guard up. Andy Stanley, a pastor here in Atlanta, said: "If we were able to rewrite the script for the reputation of Christianity, I think we would put the emphasis on developing relationships with non-believers, serving them, loving them, and making them feel accepted...Only then would we earn the right to share the gospel.""
What stuck out to you in this quote from Andy Stanley? For me, it was unequivocally his statement, "only then would we earn the right to share the gospel". This sounds a lot like many Christians and Pastors at my church in Orange County who have used this statement to seemingly defend their complacency toward sharing the gospel with strangers or their possible fear of evangelism altogether.
As you will see from Mark's newsletter, he uses sound biblical understanding to look at this argument. Please take a look at the full newsletter
here.
I do not wish to cause division by bringing this into the light, but hope that this can foster sound biblical doctrine, a missional heart like Jesus had, and more unity than ever before. We need to analyze as a church our viewpoints toward why we don't share our faith with strangers. And, I know that if you are willing to seek out these answers in the Scriptures with me, we will become unified in Jesus' heartbeat "to seek and save that which is lost", wherever these human beings are that Jesus cares deeply for...and they don't have to JUST be in relationship with you as a neighbor, coworker, or family member.Click this picture to watch one of Mark's videos entitled "
No Crossing Over: Is it true that people in hell believe in personal evangelism, but people on earth do not?"
About Andy StanleyAndy Stanley serves as senior pastor of the campuses of North Point Ministries, including North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia; Buckhead Church in Atlanta, Georgia; and Browns Bridge Community Church in Cumming, Georgia. Each Sunday, over twenty thousand attend one of these NPM campuses. Andy is the bestselling author of Visioneering, The Next Generation Leader, The Best Question Ever, and How Good Is Good Enough? Andy and his wife, Sandra, have two sons and a daughter.
About Mark CahillMak Cahill has a business degree from Auburn University, where he was an honorable mention Academic All-American in basketball. He has worked in the business world at IBM and in various management positions, and he taught high school for four years. Mark now speaks to more than 25,000 people a year at conferences, camps, retreats, etc. He has also appeared on numerous radio and television shows. Mark's favorite thing to do is to go out and meet people and find out what they believe and why they believe it. Mark has written "One Thing You can't do in heaven" and "One Heartbeat Away".