Third Sunday of Easter

Christ for All – Every Methodist an Evangelist

Faith Family,

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I continue to give thanks to our gracious God for putting you all in our lives. Your faithfulness and your enthusiasm fill my heart with joy and helps complete my hope in Christ. Every day I look forward to serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ alongside each of you and growing in our discipleship journey together. I pray as God has continued blessings us, may we continue to be a blessing to others.

Many of you already know but this past week I spend 3 days in the presence of the Holy Spirt as Mid-Texas pastors and laity gathered to be equipped and to learn how to equip others in Evangelism. The word Evangelism is scary to many. However, it is a word that needs to be used more and more as we continue to recapture our Methodist Roots and Holiness tradition.

Now I know that the Apostle Paul lists in the Spiritual Gifts the role of Evangelist. I also know that many will say, “I don’t have the gift of Evangelism.” However, the Apostle Paul also lists the gift of faith, yet we know that we are called to display faith in Christ at all times. The simple truth is that there are folks who display extraordinary giftedness in those areas mentioned by the Apostle, and that is because they have been gifted in that area. Christians are not exempt from living out their call even though they may not be gifted in those specific areas. Jesus commissioned His disciples to Go and make disciples (Evangelism) and teach them to obey everything they had been taught (teacher) and to remember that He will be with them forevermore (faith).

Although we may not have an extraordinary knack of sharing our faith story and sharing Christ with others. we are not exempt from fulfilling that call upon our lives. Evangelism has been at the root of Methodism, not to mention Christianity since the conception. Therefore, as Methodists, we should embrace this privilege of letting others know what Christ has done in our lives and offer them a better way to deal with the problem and issues life brings our way.

I want to address two fears that tend to fill the lives of those called to Evangelize. First, we are afraid of how someone will or will not respond. God has promised that the Holy Spirit has already gone before us and are working in the lives that God will bring our way. So, the folks we meet, God is already working on. Our responsibility is to share the change in our lives since Christ came in our lives. The Holy Spirit will do the rest. We don’t change them. We don’t convert them. The Holy Spirit does that. However, if we don’t share with them, who will? So we don’t have to worry about how they will respond. 

There are three responses: They may become offended and say somethings things that may be hurtful. They will listen, and you will only plant seeds that others will come and nurture. Or, you will be the one who has the pleasure of helping them accept Jesus Christ. The promise that we have is this: Regardless of how the person responds – we will be covered with blessings for being obedient.

The second worry is the lack of confidence. We don’t share our faith because we don’t have confidence in how to do it. We are afraid of getting it wrong, or them asking questions we can’t answer. We all have a story. That story is made up of our life before Christ; how Christ came into our lives, and our lives since Christ. That is our faith story. The key is not to spend too much time on the part of “before Christ” and let them know how much your life has changed since Christ. If they have questions that you can’t answer, encourage them to talk with your pastor, or another pastor in town.

We are going to address these fears in a study coming in May called “Christ for All – Every Methodist an Evangelist.” This book was written by great leadership in the Mid-Texas Conference as well as the Global Methodist Church.  This study will help us create our story, equip us with the confidence to share our story, and the faith to allow the Holy Spirit to do His work.

I look forward taking this journey of Evangelism with you as we become a Missionary in our community and continued our journey in 2026 to be an Acts 2 Church. 

May Christ’s peace be with you! 

Have a blessed Week!

Pastor Frank