Hi! My name is Jerry and I'm a recovering non-evangelist.

As I understand it, an evangelist is someone who proclaims the Good News; who proclaims the Gospel!

When the apostle Paul was on the Damascus road, he experienced a bright light and he encountered the Lord. Through that experience he repented and his life changed and he turned to the Way of the Lord.

For the past year and a half of my experience in the Dominican Republic, I have seen the light in a new way through the gifts that the Dominican church have shared with us and I have repented of my non-evangelistic ways and am seeking the Way of the Lord.

I'd like to share a bit about three particular gifts of the church in the Dominican Republic that have helped me see the light.

In May of this year the Dominican church held a leadership summit with the objective of trying to come up with some short and long term goals to guide them in their development. As we worked through that day of goal-setting together there emerged one priority goal above all else. That goal was that we continue preaching the Gospel. The first gift that I have received and that I believe all of us have received from the Dominican church is a heart for sharing the Good News!

Several months ago the Los Guaricanos congregation sent an evangelistic team to the Peniel fellowship where Becky and I and our children worship. This evangelistic team was composed of youth and young people. We met together with them on a Saturday morning in our worship building with the objective of going out two by two into the community. Each of our pairs would be taking a particular high rise apartment building, knocking on doors and inviting people to come to a worship service that very afternoon at Peniel that would be led by the youth and young adults from Los Gauricanos, another congregation in our area. I was assigned to go with sister Miladys Figuereo. Sister Miladys is the former National Youth Association President. She's also a member of the Los Guaricanos congregation. As we went knocking on doors, when someone would respond and open their door, Miladys would begin by introducing us as representatives of the Peniel congregation. She would then share a brief statement of her faith, often using one or two key verses that were important to her. We would then invite them to join us for worship. After this brief visit, we would move on to the next home.

I've been a member of the Church of the Brethren all of my 43 years, serving as a pastor the last 10 and ½ and that was the first time I've knocked on doors inviting people to come to church. And the truly miraculous thing iss that now if you go to the Peniel fellowship and you hear brother Mota give his testimony he'll point across the sancutary to me and tell everyone that he is now worshiping with the Peniel fellowship because brother "Jerry" invited him to come worship on that Saturday of neighborhood visitation.

The second gift that I have received and that I believe we have received from the Dominican church is the gift of taking the Gospel out of the church to the people. The daily practice of taking the Gospel proclamation into the streets and into the neighborhood through intentional evangelistic ministries.. In the Dominican church there's also the practice in worship of giving opportunities for people to share during the service. Frequently, the pastor or worship leader at the beginning of the service will say, "Brother Rob, you'll have the opportunity to bring special music here in a few minutes. Sister Wilma, you'll have the opportunity to pray. And kind of on the spot we're given the opportunities to publicly share our faith. At first, this was scary for us. And, quite frankly, this was probably key to my repentance. In the Peniel fellowship where we worship Pastor Eduardo our pastor would often ask me if I would bring the sermon. He would give me a week's notice sometimes. Often times though, I had already booked my week. I had already planned trips out to different places and my time was full. Coming from seminary where I knew the ideal was to spend at least an hour of preparation for every minute of the sermon, I didn't see where I could fit it in ... so I would graciously decline. "I can't this time. If you would give me two or three months notice I'd look forward to doing it then. Well, that effectively shut Brother Eduardo down. He stopped asking me to help in worship. Then, once when I was there at Peniel I overheard two members of the leadership team discussing things and one was kind of lamenting to the other, "It seems there's something blocking the movement of the Spirit in the life of our fellowship." As I reflected in my own personal meditation time and as I prayed about my role and what God's leading was for me in the life of our church, I began to experience a change of heart. If I, as a missionary who was looked to as a spiritual example for the church, was sitting there like a lump during worship and declining all these opportunities to participate, what if others took their cue from me? Soon others would be declining to bring special music or to say a prayer. What would happen to the movement of the Spirit in the church? I shared my change of heart with Pastor Eduardo. No doubt this was one of the reasons why, the last Sunday before coming to be with you, he had me lead the first feetwashing service that the Peniel church has ever celebrated. By God's grace, I plan to continue seeking a new Way and no longer remaining in my non-evangelist ways.

The third gift of the Dominican church is this practice of expecting every baptized member to verbally share their faith. When we leave the waters of baptism we are expected to be ready to share whatever we have.

In Luke chapter 4, verse 18 (NRSV), we read that Jesus shared what his mission was when he quoted these words , "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." The mission of Jesus was a mission of verbal proclamation.

Now if we are indeed the New Testament Church today that continues the traditions of the faith established by our Lord, more than likely we see the mandate with which He sent out the twelve apostles as a mandate that applies to us. Our mission, like theirs, we find in Matt. 10, verse 7 "As you go, proclaim the good news, "the kingdom of heaven has come near"."

As we see in the New Testament faith and practice the priority for verbal proclamation of the Good News is there. In the letter of Paul to the Romans we are reminded, "For, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Romans 10:13-15)

Indeed the truth is, beloved sisters and brothers, "... you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." (1 Peter 2:9)

Brothers and sisters, just as I believe that in my heart I am a non-evangelist I also believe that we as the Church of the Brethren, in our hearts are a non-evangelistic denomination. I have received what I believe is probably the best Christian discipleship training that the Church of the Brethren has to offer during my lifetime. I have been in the church all of my life with missionary parents, my father as a pastor, but also receiving the best in Sunday school training, going to camp every summer, going to a Brethren college, participating in BVS, attending Bethany Theological Seminary, And the best that the Church of the Brethren has to offer has left me struggling to overcome my non-evangelistic tendencies.

I'd like to call three witnesses who I believe will support my claim that we are a non-evangelistic church.

First, I'd like to call Brother Edward K. Ziegler. Brother Ziegler wrote the Brethren Encyclopedia article entitled evangelism. I'd like to quote a little bit of his article. Brother Ziegler said that "The Church of the Brethren established in 1951 a department of evangelism under the Ministry and Home Mission Commission of the General Brotherhood Board and called Edward K. Ziegler to be its director. For a few years there was notable growth in membership as the church tried new and effective ways to "Win Men to Christ". After 1955, interest in evangelism waned, overshadowed by the *peace and *relief and service activities of the church. Since 1969, membership has declined alarmingly."¹

The second witness I would like to call is sister Judy Mills Reimer, Executive Director of the Church of the Brethren General Board. As we were discussing this issue several months ago during sister Judy's first visit to the Dominican Republic she shared her memory of being a Church of the Brethren volunteer service worker in the early 1960's. During her orientation she said, she and her volunteer colleagues were speicifically instructed NOT to share their faith on project, unless someone asked them what they believed or why they believed it. Now I want to offer a little disclaimer here, I don't think you'll hear sister Judy proposing that this be our policy today. I think she's an advocate for the sharing of our faith. But, nevertheless, that was a way we were instructing our volunteers in the early 1960's.

As my third witness I'd like to call the July issue of MESSENGER which many of you may have seen. If you haven't seen it, extra copies are available in the General Board exhibit. There's an article on page 7 entitled, "Church Membership Down From 1998." From that article, I would like to read just a paragraph; "Membership in the US and Puerto Rico at the end of 1999 was 138,304, a drop of 1,707 from the previous year."

I simply share this to say that I believe we have an important message to hear sisters and brothers. It is biblically clear that Jesus' call is a call to be about verbally proclaiming the Good News. The Good News of God's saving love for all creation. He calls us to verbally proclaim the Good News of God's all-sufficient power which is available to everyone who confesses faith in Jesus Christ and who seeks to follow Him in the way of life.

It also is biblically clear that sin often gets in our way. One of the Greek words for sin is hamartia. I understand that this word can be defined as "missing the mark". I t seems to me from what we've heard this evening; from what I've studied; from what many of us know from reading the New Testament, that the mark that Jesus has set for us is the mark of verbally proclaiming the Good News. But now if we're not doing that....If we're living in a non-evangelistic way, then we are missing the mark.

As the apostle Paul said in Romans, chapter 6, verse 23, the wages of sin is death. It should be no mystery to us that we see this decline in membership in the Church of the Brethren. We're slowly on the road to death. But the reason seems to be very obvious. We're on the road to death because we're living in sin. We are not proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. The call to proclaim the Gospel is a call for all of us.

There is a better way! There is great hope!

I've been pretty impressed by the growth of the Mormon Church. So while in the Dominican Republic I asked for an interview with Lane Butterfield. He is the director of Finance for the Mormon Church in the Dominican Republic. I met with him about three weeks ago. He shared with me that in the Dominican Republic alone there are 550-600 volunteer Mormon missionaries at work In the world there are 70,000 Mormon missionaries at work today . As we discussed, it was clear to me that the reason there are all these Mormon missionaries all over the world is because their priority is to verbally share their faith with others and to lead others to baptism in the Mormon church. They have a heart for evangelism.

Lane shared with me about his formation. He grew up in a Mormon household. He said that he recalls delivering papers as a boy and saving his money so that he too could someday go on a mission when he reached age 19. And indeed he did go on a two-year mission. You see in the Mormon church all the missionaries pay their own way–$385 a month for two years-- to cover their expenses. Lane told me that the routine when you enter the volunteer mission service in the Mormon church is first to go through an orientation time. If you are going overseas, this involves a very intense language training for about a month and then an additional training for all volunteers in scripture, in missionary techniques as well as in the seven discussions. In the Mormon church I guess there are seven discussions that basically lay out the basic precepts of the Mormon faith to lead a non-believer from non-belief to the point where they decide to be baptized into the Mormon church. When the Mormon missionaries go on the field they work from 6 a.m. until 10:30 in the evening with a very structured schedule six days a week. That whole time is spent verbally sharing their faith with others, trying to lead others to the decision of baptism to enter the Mormon church.

If my facts are correct, the Mormon church was founded around 1830. They had 1 million members by 1950. Today Lane estimates the Mormon membership to be around 11 million members worldwide. He said the greatest problem the Mormon church is facing right now is the challenge of trying to adequately equip their leaders to deal with all the new members coming into the church. The key to all of this: the Mormon church has a heart for verbally sharing their faith with others.

We had a young adult workcamp through the Church of the Brethren in the Dominican Republic this past June. A member of that workcamp was Jeanesse Rodeffer from Washington state. Jeanesse is attending university in Tacoma. She said that while she is there she has been attending the New Song Church. The New Song Church is a non-denominational, Christian congregation with a fairly contemporary worship model. She said that a focus in the New Song Church is to equip all of their congregants with what it takes to be able to verbally share their biblical faith with others and to lead others to Christ. And Jeanesse shared with me a tool; it's an acronymn called AWCFROGROL; ten letters. Each of these letters in the acronymn, when recalled, points you to a specific Bible verse in the New Testament. Each letter is the first letter of the word that is the key theme in that Bible verse. So, using this memorization tool, by the time you have walked through those ten letters and those ten verses, you have essentially shared the basics of the Christian faith with whomever you are talking with. The New Song Church equips their congregants to go out with this tool as a way they can share the basics of the Christian faith with others.

Sisters and brothers, I stand before you this evening as a recovering non-evangelist. And as anyone who has been through a twelve step program or a New Testament based spiritual recovery program will know, humility is a key beginning to spiritual recovery. And as I understand it, humility is simply seeing things as they truly are.²

None of us, I believe, are born evangelists. In fact the biblical record and our human experience will indicate that most of us are born with a propensity or a tendency toward sin. A helpful understanding of sin for me is "whenever we are focused on ourselves". Self-centeredness is really the beginning of all sin.³ By God's grace, we are invited to have a different center for our lives .... which is God. That is the repentance; the transformation that Jesus Christ offers us: to turn away from self-centeredness to God-centeredness. By God's grace, I have been led to a time of repentance. And I pray that, by God's grace, our denomination will experience a repentance; a change of heart where we will turn from being perhaps centered on something other than the Gospel; the words of Jesus Christ; the mandate to go and proclaim the Good News!

We have some great promises that the Lord has given us to help us as we seek this Way.

He has promised to always be with us (Matt. 28:20).

The Lord has promised to give us the right words at the right time through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit who goes with those who walk in the Way. (Matt. 10:19-20, Lk. 21:13-15)

The Lord has promised that sharing the Good News is not going to be dependent upon us. Jesus said that, should we fail to proclaim the Good News, our God will call forth even the rocks of the field to proclaim the wonders of his love. (Lk. 19:40)

To conclude this evening, we simply want to remember that we have some wonderful gifts from the Dominican church that have led me to repent from my non-evangelistic ways and that I invite us to consider:

1) The gift of a heart for sharing the Good News.
2) The practice of taking the Gospel out of the church to the people in the community.
3) And the understanding that every baptised member is called to verbally share the faith with others.

Join me in repenting; in turning around from our non-evangelistic ways so that together we might join with the Psalmist in proclaiming: "I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever. With my mouth, I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations." (Ps. 89:1)

Amen.

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¹The Brethren Encyclopedia, Volumn 1 A-J (Philadelphia, PA, and Oak Brook, IL: The Brethren Encyclopedia Inc., 1983) p. 461.

² Hunger for Healing, The Twelve Steps as a Classic Model for Christian Spiritual Growth, J. Keith Miller, (San Francisco, Harper Collins, 1991) p. 117.

³IBID. Miller refers to William Temple, Readings in St. John's Gospel (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 1985) in this definition of sin found on pg. 3 of Miller's book.