Effects of Reformation on Evangelism and Missions

Reformation Remembrance Conference

Taylor Creek Church Oct 14, 2017

Intro:

For well over a generation in the US evangelism and missions have found a very favorable place in Protestant Churches. Just do a search online and you’ll end up with dozens if not hundreds of ministries and programs to help your church share the gospel. From the US came the “Jesus Film,” one of the most widely used evangelistic and missions tools ever! Most churches support missionaries, have missions conferences, and tell missions stories in Sunday School.

This is all good but it is also dangerous. Whenever any idea becomes so ubiquitous it also faces the danger of losing it’s Biblical foundation, becoming watered down, and running amuck with all kinds of fanciful modifications in an attempt to make it “contemporary,” “cutting edge,” or “culturally” relevant.

Fads in evangelism are never-ending and certainly the American church has seen every fad, trend, and style possible when it comes to evangelism. We’ve been taught to memorize salesy evangelistic type pitches, we’ve been shown how to “do life together,” we’ve been told that we can’t reach this generation until we look and smell, and talk like they do. And so some have let their beards grow out, put on a pair of suspenders, and developed a taste for microbrews all in hopes that they can “connect” with social trends.

On the other hand, others have held out, they’ve stalwartly stood by traditions of yesteryear, not moving an inch. They’d sooner have their ears cut off than listen to anything that’s not in their grandmothers hymnal. They are sure that their post WWII evangelism methods will work just the same in a Postmodern culture.

I hope you can see that both courses will eventually take us in the wrong direction. You may say, “Well, what we need is balance.” To some degree I agree, but I hesitate to call for balance as balance is generally a compromising position that is neither built on solid theology nor does it prove it usually it’s to be effective.

What is however, helpful to the church is a look at our methods and practices in light of Biblical truth and in reference to church history. It can be easier for us to see how these things play out as we look back several hundred years. Compressing those years often gives a clarity and that clarity can help us see where we are today and what possible changes might need to be taken

For many of the Reformers this is also how they came to their conclusions. First and most importantly they went to God’s Word, they went to the original languages and they studied! They exhumed truth from beneath hundreds of years of dust and dirt. But they were also students of church history, of the church fathers, and of current fads and traditions in the church.

I want to look with you at the Reformation time period. What was the culture of evangelism and missions like at the time of Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, and John Calvin? And how did the Reformation change the church’s approach to sharing the gospel?

Of course we will look at some of the key issues at stake such as the nature of saving faith and the way we view the Church it’s self.

Catholic Missions

If you may think that missions was something forgotten about during the 15th and 16th century but if you then you are much mistaken. Beginning in the 14 hundreds and for the following few centuries there was great missionary endeavour by the Catholic Church. Remember that Christopher Columbus’ was himself sent by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand II and Isabella I. Columbus’ task was not only to establish trading routes and new territory for Spain but also to convert the peoples of those lands to Christians.