In one sense we significantly covered the evangelist when we examined the ministry of the apostle, as we needed to distinguish the two ministries.\u00a0 We looked at Philip the Evangelist, the only person in the New Testament to be identified specifically as an evangelist, and recognized that wherever he went he preached or explained the gospel message and brought people to faith in Christ (but did not, we noted, found any churches).\u00a0 Yet we also commented that in the nineteen seventies nearly all Christian music was connected to evangelism, to the degree that it was generally assumed that if you were a Christian and a musician you were an evangelist.\u00a0 That is not so, as this series has already observed, but it is at least interesting that it was then thought to be so.<\/p>\n It is interesting because that was a time of revival–we called it “The Jesus Movement”, and the many converts became known as “Jesus People”.\u00a0 Concerts grew into festivals–the first Woodstock-like Christian gatherings occurred at that time and are still held today largely because they have become a tradition (they did not exist before that).\u00a0 The ministry of the evangelist is closely tied to revivals.\u00a0 George Whitefield, John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards are all remembered as evangelists in the First Great Awakening; Charles Finney and Lyman Beecher are leading names from the Second Great Awakening; D. L. Moody is connected to a time of revival some call the Third Great Awakening.\u00a0 The Jesus Movement was marked by a huge number of evangelists preaching on streets, in coffeehouses, at outdoor concerts, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n We do not have that today.<\/p>\n Some would say that we do not have revival at present because we do not have enough evangelists, or enough people doing evangelism.\u00a0 There are groups trying to train believers to be evangelists.\u00a0 This is wonderful, of course, as everyone needs to be able to share the faith with others; but you can no more be taught to be an evangelist than you can be taught to be female.\u00a0 As we noted, Christ gives to the church people who are the gifts, the ministers, among whom are evangelists, evangelists since before they were born given as gifts to the church.\u00a0 Thus arguably it is not that we do not have revival because of a lack of evangelists, but that we do not have evangelists because this is not a time of revival.<\/p>\n That does not mean there are no<\/i> evangelists.\u00a0 God always has people calling others to salvation, some of whom are specially given for that purpose.\u00a0 However, revivals are special times–Dr. J. Edwin Orr has identified them as “God’s periods of recruitment”, and a significant number of those who are in church ministry today accepted Christ in that revival.\u00a0 Billy Graham, Bill Bright, Dick Halverson, and a host of others who were leaders in the church then became believers in the previous revival.<\/p>\n It also does not mean that there are not evangelists growing up among us right now.\u00a0 After all, those of us who were in our teens and twenties in the seventies are in our fifties and sixties now, and God is going to need a new crop of leaders and believers.\u00a0 It will be in His timing, and He has been known to skip a generation or two, but He will not allow faith to vanish from the world.\u00a0 Revival will come, and the number of evangelists will explode anew as the message is brought to the lost once again.<\/p>\n To the evangelist, Jesus is the answer to every problem.\u00a0 It is a simple gospel, a simple message, that whatever the problem is, Jesus is the answer–absolutely true, but often overly simplistic when dealing with human problems.\u00a0 That is why there are other ministries besides the evangelist, because believers need the nurturing of pastors and teachers to help unravel how<\/i> Jesus is the answer to all the problems.\u00a0 The focus for the evangelist, though, is always on Jesus, pointing people to Him as the solution.<\/p>\n The Booths used music in their evangelism, having brass bands and singers attract crowds on the streets by singing revival hymns, creating a “Salvation Army”.\u00a0 Music was used much that way in the Jesus Movement, as something of a billboard to attract the attention of people who needed to hear the message–and the message was preached, but it was also sung.\u00a0 In the preface to his book Inventing Champagne:\u00a0 The Worlds of Lerner and Loewe<\/i>, music historian Gene Lees comments that music is an incredibly effective form of advertising because people voluntarily memorize the words and repeat them.\u00a0 Getting the gospel message into music that people will want to hear and sing is a significant part of the evangelist’s music ministry–and many of the musicians and bands of the early Jesus Movement did that extremely well.\u00a0 The modern musical evangelist has a solid collection of examples from that era, some of whom continued ministering for decades thereafter.\u00a0 Learn from them.<\/p>\n Which brings us next to the pastor.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n Next in the series: Music Ministry of the Pastor<\/a><\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #102, on the subject of Music and the Evangelist Ministry. This continues our miniseries on what it is to be “called” to “music ministry”.\u00a0 Our first installment was #95:\u00a0 Music Ministry Disconnect, making the point that most Christians are not what we call “ministers” and most musicians are … Continue reading #102: Music and the Evangelist Ministry<\/span> ![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.mjyoung.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/img0102Graham-300x277.jpg\")
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