Missionary Road

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.

When Mark Cahill’s Newsletter arrives in my email every month, I always open it to see what Mark’s talking about each month. This month’s title was “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 in his newsletter about the following 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 today that I speak with, and some at my church in Orange County who have used this statement to defend what may be 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 his full newsletter here.

I do not wish to cause division by bringing this into the light, but I do hope that this can foster sound biblical doctrine, a missional heart like Jesus had, and more unity than ever before. We need to analyze our viewpoints toward why we don’t share our faith with strangers. I think this goes so much deeper than evangelism. In fact, I’ve been fighting the wrong battle for too long. The real issue is about the church, and fighting against the institution of Christianity. We need to be about a Jesus movement that disciples well, embodys the life of Jesus well, and be a community with the purpose of reaching out to the world around us. And, I know that if you and I together are willing to seek out these answers in both the Scriptures and life of Jesus, we will become a unified church with the heartbeat of Jesus’ heartbeat “who came to seek and save that which is lost”… …and I guarantee they won’t just be your neighbors, coworkers or family members.

See one of Mark’s videos called “No Crossing Over: Is it true that people in hell believe in personal evangelism, but people on earth do not?”:

About Andy Stanley
Andy 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 Cahill
Mak 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”.

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