Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – Evangelism and Discipleship

By Kumar Abraham
May 2007

Which came first—the chicken or the egg? I suppose for creationists that is an easy question to answer—the chicken!

But which comes first—evangelism or discipleship? Some argue that without doing evangelism, discipleship is impossible. Some say it is only a disciple of Christ who can evangelise. Others may ask why we should even separate the two.

Our theologies and interpretations of scripture are always coloured by the strengths and weaknesses of our personalities, our own biases, prejudices, cultures, denominations, churches or organizational upbringings. Some cultures have a tendency to see things as integrated; other cultures tend to see things as segregated and sequential. As fallen beings living lives that are redeemed and renewed by scripture, we must listen and learn from one another instead of isolating ourselves from others.

The natural flow in our maturing process is to become a “disciple” first and then to start sharing the gospel. The idea seems to be a noble one of giving priority to growth. However, I see many problems in this. We must ask ourselves, is this a biblical model?

Historically, the local church has waited until a new believer has bonded to a congregation (the “come see” stage) and then has moved on to the discipling (the “come and follow me”) stage which includes the “bearing fruit” stage.¹ David Watson seems to advocate something similar: “Naturally they were not launched into powerful and effective evangelism overnight. Gently Jesus had to help them to loose their fears, to overcome their inertia, to see the urgency of the harvest and to watch and pray.”²

Discipleship should emphasize evangelism from day one of the Christian life.

While agreeing with Watson, there is no need for the Church to make this a standard for all. Andrew, for instance, shared with his brother Peter on the day he met Jesus. John 1:41-42 reads, “The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.” Isn’t this evangelism? Jesus did not say “wait until they come to you” or “wait until they seem ready to start on discipleship.” He said “go and make disciples.” This may seem difficult if you believe that one must be trained (discipled) in order to evangelize. Jesus never implied that any maturation was needed to prepare one to do evangelism. All that is necessary is to know the “evangel”—the good news of the gospel. According to my friend Dr. Bronson Stilwell, if someone is really a Christian, then the person can do evangelism.

Encouraging New Believers
Clearly defining when a Christ-follower is mature enough to do evangelism can be difficult. Discipleship should emphasize evangelism from day one of the Christian life. By compartmentalizing and programming spiritual growth to seasons and periods, we have limited the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives. It is best to encourage new believers to do evangelism immediately after conversion. This could be done by asking them to share their testimonies. Bill Hybels illustrates with a graph the predicament faced by evangelicals worldwide. The longer we live our Christian lives, the less interaction we have with those “far from God.”³

Dr. Kumar Abraham is a Sri Lankan national living in Melbourne, Australia and has served as a missionary in the Philippines for twenty-one years. He is an evangelist, a trainer of evangelists, equipper of Christ-followers in evangelism and a Bible school lecturer. He can be reached at: [email protected].