Dale Partridge - What Does Evangelism Look Like in a House Church？

00:00:00.000 Hey there, folks, and welcome to How We Do House Church, the official podcast of Reformation

00:00:12.120 Seminary and the Reformation Fellowship Church Planting Network. My name is Dr. Jason Barker,

00:00:17.260 and I serve as the Academic Dean at Reformation Seminary, and I'm joined by my friend and the

00:00:21.640 seminary's founder and president, Dale Partridge. Dale, how's it going?

00:00:25.420 brother i'm excited for today's conversation hitting evangelism and it's one of the i think

00:00:31.420 the larger critiques of house church is what does evangelism look like right yes you know one of the

00:00:38.620 things that's particular to house church culture is that because of the size of the organizations

00:00:44.140 and in the churches being intentionally kept small and intimate for the purpose of discipleship and

00:00:49.020 so forth. The culture does not lean towards doing events for evangelism. There's no vacation Bible

00:00:57.160 school or backyard Bible clubs. We're not focused on- Or giant Easter Sunday. Yeah, Easter egg hunts

00:01:02.780 and all of those things that typically churches do with great intentions of inviting people from

00:01:07.960 the community to come in and make that connection and hear about Jesus from the pastor or from

00:01:12.780 somebody else on staff. That's not part of what we do. Just philosophically and impractically,

00:01:17.880 we couldn't pull those things off but it does beg the question how do we keep a house church

00:01:25.960 focused on the great commission and how do we prevent a house church from becoming just a

00:01:30.040 completely inwardly focused insulated non-gospel sharing community yeah so we're so used to in the

00:01:37.400 western church evangelism occurring through events we are so used to evangelism being

00:01:49.080 essentially outsourced to the pastor by saying don't share the gospel with them just invite them

00:01:55.640 to church and let the pastor share the gospel with them right and so that is the culture of the west

00:02:00.760 And so the idea of a house church being great commission focused with gospel, a gospel forward mentality is strange and unfamiliar because how would you do such a thing without the events?

00:02:17.780 And the reality is the way that we would do gospel ministry is the way that church history has always done gospel ministry, which is it's an outward ministry of the church.

00:02:28.600 we would go out and share the gospel with individuals in our own life.

00:02:33.860 For example, I shared the gospel with a gentleman that's building my house,

00:02:37.420 and he was coming to our church for a period of time,

00:02:40.100 and we're still in further conversations about that.

00:02:43.020 We've had conversations with the gospel with my barber

00:02:46.520 and different people that I talked to there.

00:02:49.340 I've shared the gospel with neighbors

00:02:50.980 and people who grew up in the church

00:02:55.000 and hadn't been coming to a gathering of believers for many, many years

00:02:59.200 and are now attending and being a part of the church.

00:03:03.420 Up in Oregon, I had individuals that we would share the gospel with

00:03:06.560 and actually came to faith after a period of months

00:03:11.220 and came to be a part of the church.

00:03:12.960 And so we are encouraging individuals to have an appetite,

00:03:18.200 or I should say we're nurturing an appetite for Great Commission ministry.

00:03:23.200 I think it was Alistair Begg who said,

00:03:25.280 if evangelism isn't a passion for the pastor,

00:03:28.740 it will not ever be a passion for the pew

00:03:31.480 or something like that.

00:03:32.440 Yeah, exactly.

00:03:33.280 And so as shepherds,

00:03:35.500 we need to constantly be remembering

00:03:39.040 that the Great Commission is the mission of the church.

00:03:42.860 And we need to nurture that appetite

00:03:45.220 for caring for the lost.

00:03:48.040 I think oftentimes Christians forget

00:03:50.320 what it's like to be lost and we just enjoy the benefits of the local church and we can become

00:03:58.760 inward focused but when we have a passion for the lost and that when we realize that

00:04:06.120 i wish that someone shared the gospel with me earlier we know love covers a multitude of sins

00:04:12.880 we know that if had i heard the gospel earlier that there would have been many moments of pain

00:04:20.220 misery that have been removed um we know that the law of god the moral law of god is is protects us

00:04:27.980 against sin and guards us against um the the results of sin and so we need to have a passion

00:04:36.220 for for the loss we need to have a passion for the gospel and our heart as uh reformation fellowship

00:04:43.740 and the churches that are in our network is that we actually do that we actually want to get out

00:04:48.380 we want to have gospel tracks available with us all the time we want to have bibles available for

00:04:53.340 us we have little gospels of john we want to encourage individuals to individual evangelism

00:04:59.340 at any given moment always being ready to give an answer for the hope that is in them and so

00:05:04.460 that is an absolute passion that needs to be really inaugurated by the the pastor and that's

00:05:11.020 something that that i work hard to do but we also train our pastors to have a heart

00:05:15.180 for evangelism so that it's not just about the inward edification of the saints but it's also

00:05:22.140 about the outward work of the ministry in our own individual lives so we're training the women we're

00:05:27.340 training the men we're training the children even to be able to faithfully present eloquently

00:05:33.260 present without fear without reservation boldly clearly faithfully present the gospel yeah you

00:05:41.820 You know, talk for a minute then about how you're doing that training.

00:05:49.540 Because I know it's going to come through preaching.

00:05:50.980 It's going to come through personal example.

00:05:53.080 Yeah.

00:05:53.300 So gospel fluency is really a result of sound doctrine.

00:06:01.740 Okay.

00:06:01.980 So when you are gospel fluent, it means that you really just understand the mechanics, the doctrinal mechanics of the gospel.

00:06:13.460 So faithful expository preaching, catechesis of your children, training up the individuals, not just on verse by verse exposition, but also topical doctrinal positions, having members in the church read statements of faith like the 1689, catechizing the adults if need be.

00:06:31.980 uh really having a focus on bringing the gospel forefront in your preaching on a regular basis

00:06:38.860 making sure that the men at the men's group and the women at the women's group and the books that

00:06:41.900 we're going through are really solidifying that foundation of sound doctrine because when that

00:06:46.620 doctrine is put together and you're starting to see again the the mechanics of scripture

00:06:53.180 it becomes gospel fluency as the result right the ability to communicate eloquently faithfully

00:06:59.820 accurately passionately clearly the gospel and the more you have sound doctrine the more passion and

00:07:07.020 desire you have to share the gospel right and so it's really um yes we do need like evangelistic

00:07:14.380 training how do you specifically do it i don't like scripts i don't like the ability of because

00:07:19.980 every situation is different and every unique circumstance requires for a different presentation

00:07:25.260 for someone's different, unique circumstances

00:07:27.520 of pain and problems and history with the church

00:07:31.120 or whatever it may be.

00:07:32.300 So the best thing to do

00:07:33.500 is just create gospel-fluent parishioners

00:07:36.640 in the church through sound doctrine.

00:07:39.780 And then encourage people to get out

00:07:41.820 and really share that gospel.

00:07:43.660 Do it because it takes getting those reps

00:07:46.780 under your belt

00:07:48.900 to really get ready for those questions,

00:07:52.020 get ready for those discussions that occur.

00:07:53.660 There's something that you and I have been talking about recently, and it's a doctrinal element that you might not necessarily think relates back to an urgency to share the gospel.

00:08:05.120 But we've been talking a lot recently about having a hopeful eschatology.

00:08:09.140 I'm not going to tell you 45 seconds this time, but briefly talk about the importance of having a hopeful outlook on how the world is progressing and maybe how that ties into that passion for evangelism.

00:08:25.540 Yeah, so we have a victorious king.

00:08:29.340 Christ won the war.

00:08:31.720 We know we have some compelling

00:08:34.840 and significant promises in scripture from Christ.

00:08:37.800 We know that the church,

00:08:40.960 that Christ will build his church

00:08:42.400 and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

00:08:45.320 That the battering ram of the gospel

00:08:47.140 will break in the gates of hell.

00:08:49.080 We know that, that's a promise from Jesus.

00:08:51.340 We know that all authority in heaven and on earth

00:08:54.440 has been given to Christ.

00:08:57.360 And so he is ruling this world.

00:08:59.560 He's not just the head of the church,

00:09:00.760 he's the head of the state, he's the head of the world.

00:09:02.780 The government's on his shoulders.

00:09:05.400 We know that Christianity since the beginning of the church

00:09:10.400 and say 35 AD was a small population of the world,

00:09:17.120 less than 0.01% of the population of the world was Christian.

00:09:22.120 Today, it's about 20% of the world.

00:09:26.700 The church is growing, and the Great Commission

00:09:28.760 is not going to fail,

00:09:30.160 because Christ is leading the Great Commission.

00:09:33.800 He has won the war.

00:09:35.340 The people are converted by his power through his spirit.

00:09:40.680 We are just simply the means,

00:09:42.640 the midwife to the new birth.

00:09:46.140 We are, faith comes by hearing,

00:09:47.680 and hearing through the word of Christ.

00:09:49.080 We are simply preachers that must be sent.

00:09:52.120 and must share the gospel but Christ is building his church and there is victory that has been

00:10:01.160 proclaimed we can go out to the world and say your leader lost the enemy has lost and my king

00:10:10.520 has won the war has been won and in a variety of ways you're telling them you need to submit to

00:10:18.920 to the king.

00:10:20.320 And if you don't, every knee will bow

00:10:23.240 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord

00:10:26.040 and you will be punished for your rebellion

00:10:28.120 against this king.

00:10:29.940 So there's a sense that the gospel is command.

00:10:32.520 Now we need to preach the truth and love,

00:10:35.880 but we don't need to pull back from that truth

00:10:40.240 is that Christ is king.

00:10:42.020 And the same way that David conquered

00:10:45.420 the enemy of God's people, Goliath,

00:10:47.960 Christ conquered the enemy of God's people, Satan, on the cross through sin.

00:10:55.300 And we are a victorious people, and we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus.

00:11:02.860 And so we have this pessimistic eschatology that goes around through the church that everything's getting worse and darker.

00:11:08.940 And I go, well, I would say, actually, the Great Commission is continuing to convert sinners into saints.

00:11:15.420 and Jesus is continuing to make his enemies his friends. 0.94

00:11:19.620 And there are more and more Christians now 0.91

00:11:22.320 than there was 500 years ago

00:11:24.080 and 500 years before that and 500 years before that.

00:11:26.500 And we're not being eaten by lions right now.

00:11:28.700 Now, there are downturns and there are fallenness

00:11:31.400 and there are wars and there are brokenness.

00:11:33.860 But generally speaking, the Great Commission is succeeding.

00:11:37.860 And I don't see any reason why that's going to ever stop.

00:11:40.860 I think Christ will continue to conquer.

00:11:43.620 And I think we could be hopeful about that.

00:11:45.420 And I think we need to be more optimistic about the Great Commission and that we need to get out there. And that should be a driving force behind our churches that we're going, hey, let's get out there and share this good news that we have a new king and that he's one and there's a kingdom being built and we could be part of that kingdom and it could change our homes and it could change our families and it could change our churches and it could change our communities.

00:12:11.060 And I think that perspective really does help people have vision.

00:12:16.880 Yeah, and there's a definite hope with urgency.

00:12:22.420 I hear people saying sometimes, well, I've just been praying if God would have me witness to that.

00:12:27.660 Yes, 100% of the time, God would have you witness.

00:12:32.220 There's pre-mill and post-mill and on-mill.

00:12:34.820 There's no sit-around mill in your eschatology or your view of the end times and God's kingdom and everything.

00:12:41.500 And so there needs to be this hope and this urgency to spread the gospel and share the gospel.

00:12:46.820 But at the same time, we're also very much aware that there's a fear of this.

00:12:53.480 One thing, Dale, that you've been doing recently that you and ReLearn have launched is a very easy, accessible way of sharing the gospel.

00:13:01.420 Talk about that for a minute.

00:13:02.160 Yeah, so we launched a ministry called mailthegospel.org, where individuals can mail the gospel beautifully designed, a theologically accurate presentation of the gospel that can be read in 10 to 15 minutes, beautiful little booklets.

00:13:19.980 they can mail it to anyone, anywhere, anonymously or personalized. And this is really an outwork

00:13:27.660 of our local church. We've already had several thousand individuals mail the gospel to somebody

00:13:34.920 else. And what a blessing it has been to be able to, as a church, fulfill those orders,

00:13:41.780 to pray over those orders. And so again, I'm over here trying to nurture that appetite for

00:13:46.720 evangelism, making sure that the members of our church have tracks available in their car, in

00:13:51.920 their bags, so that when they're going around town, they have an opportunity to share the gospel.

00:13:58.140 They can either give it to them, have a conversation with them, or ask for their address and mail it to

00:14:01.440 them. And so this is just one way that we're working over here to, again, nurture that appetite.

00:14:09.460 So we are, as a house church community, yes, we are discipleship heavy compared to a traditional

00:14:15.780 model, we get a chance to know one another, deeply connected, have that inward edification,

00:14:21.760 that mutual ministering of the one another's of scripture that is seemingly absent in many

00:14:26.880 traditional churches. We get a larger portion of that here. But at the same time, I would say

00:14:34.400 we're just as or even more evangelistic because we are intentionally nurturing that desire to get

00:14:41.600 out and every individual is responsible for the Great Commission work that God has called in their

00:14:48.860 life. Absolutely. So folks, if you are interested in mailing the gospel to a friend or to a family

00:14:56.700 member, maybe someone that you just don't know how to approach them one-on-one, head to

00:15:01.760 mailthegospel.org and in just a few clicks, you can take care of that. Maybe you also would like

00:15:06.980 to get some more information on House Church. Feel free to check out Dale's book, How We Do House

00:15:10.700 Church. It's actually part of the required reading for Reformation Seminary. You can get that book,

00:15:15.820 How We Do House Church, on Amazon. You can also order it through the ReLearn store, which frankly

00:15:20.800 is probably our preferred way of doing that. The ministry retains a little bit more money that way.

00:15:25.560 And then as always, if you have some questions or would like some more information on

00:15:29.440 how to plant a house church and you're ready to take that next step, then head to

00:15:33.800 reformationseminary.com and fill out one of our enrollment inquiries. And we'd be happy to get

00:15:37.840 you on a Canada interview call and start that ball rolling. So, Dale, I think that's probably

00:15:42.980 our time for this episode. Thanks again, everyone, for tuning in, and we will see you next time.

Dale Partridge - October 17, 2022

What Does Evangelism Look Like in a House Church？

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