‘Evangelists just make more evangelists.’ It sounded obvious once he said it, but this simple statement from my friend struck me as revelation. It's accepted as obvious that leaders naturally raise up other leaders similar to them. It's a bit of a running joke at church when one of the girls I mentor preaches that she even has the same “I'm-screwing-in-lots-of-lightbulbs” hand gestures that I also display when explaining a point.
Yet somehow I hadn't really thought about evangelists making anything other than more believers and, more broadly, building-up and unifying the body of Christ, (see Ephesians 4). Of course, I've seen other leaders "breed what they lead" so why would that not be true for evangelists?
Who Do You Want to Replicate?
Who do you have leading in your church community at the moment? Can you spot how they are being replicated? It was Ness Wilson who said to me ‘who do you want to see replicated a hundred times in your church? That's the person you want as a leader.’ Whichever way you look at it, although we do want to see more prophets, teachers, pastors and apostles, when you consider the student population of your area and you realise you probably can't account for more than 1% of them actively involved in Christian community, the need for evangelists to be raised up is mission critical.
You might well be thinking, ‘but we don't have any evangelists in our community.’ I'd be very surprised if Jesus has missed your church family off the gift list when it comes to the types of leader Paul explicitly teaches us He has given to the church. If you can't think of anyone, chances are they just need to be discovered. I had to be taught what an evangelist was when I was a student and that's how I realised I was one, owned it for myself, and started intentionally operating as one in the church. When was the last time you did any teaching on what an evangelist is and invited people who thought they might be one or wanted to be one, to be prayed for?
You might also be thinking, ‘the only student evangelist I can think of certainly should not be raised up as a leader right now!’ When working with students, or rather wrestling with them and their forming identities as we call them (or drag them) into adulthood with Christ, I'm aware some young evangelists aren't in a place to be given the microphone and the authority to equip the church.... yet.But they will keep inviting people into community anyway.They will keep showing up with more "fringe" followers, or hung-over housemates.They can't help it; they’re evangelists. So leaders have to learn to celebrate what we want to see replicated, which won't be poor lifestyle choices, but it will be their consistent inviting. That will cause other students to see it's possible for them to invite too. Not just possible in fact, but noticed and encouraged.
Provide Opportunities
Your messy, young evangelists need to be given the opportunity to hang around more mature evangelists who can raise them up and grow them up in their gifting, rather than leaving them to their own devices as if they'll sort themselves out and magically be ready for you to use in a year’s time. I try and take students on the road with me every time I travel for this reason. Raising evangelists will take time, energy, relationship and encouragement to persevere, even when they feel like the only person in the world who cares about sharing their faith and seeing people saved.
Everyone in the church longs for people to come to know Jesus. We'd love our story to be "the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved" (Acts 2:47) but this doesn't happen without people participating with the Holy Spirit. Jesus gave His church evangelists to catalyse this faith-sharing culture. So let's use the gifts He's given us; teach about evangelists, find them, pray for them, hang out with them and watch how many more evangelists start cropping up in your community just by remembering and celebrating that they exist.
