Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

54 • P LANTING C HURCHES AMONG THE C ITY ’ S P OOR : V OLUME 1

the bar in the evenings. When a troublesome customer came in the manager would say, “Here is a caring team who are willing to listen to you.” The “carers” wore distinctive jackets with logos on them. The pastor was a Southern Baptist, and the congregation found it hard to understand when he and other members came in smelling as though they had fallen into a barrel of bad wine. But they had more baptisms from the taverns in one year than from many evangelistic missions. 85 Spending time on personal contacts such as these may appear to use up precious ministry time in the short run but in the long run it provides invaluable relationships, updated information, linkage to resources and ministries that might otherwise be duplicated, and the ability to see the community from the viewpoint of the congregation. As contacts are made with the community and the team comes to know its people, it is ready to begin the process of evangelization and church planting. Evangelization The Book of Acts recounts the evangelism of the early church. The Holy Spirit guided the first Christians to spread the message of Christ, “first in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Ervin Hastey lists the methods of witnessing in the first century: 1. The public proclamation of the divine message. 2. The teaching from house to house, in public places, in forums, and in synagogues. 3. The informal witnessing – the gossiping of the gospel. 4. The healings, such as found in Acts 3, that opened the door for sharing Christ. 5. The miracles performed by Jesus, Paul, Peter and others. 6. The fellowshipping of the believers which testified to the love of God. People saw how Christians loved one another and were drawn to the fellowship. 86

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85 Bakke, pp. 116-117

86 See Ervin E. Hastey, “Reaching the Cities First: A Biblical Model of World Evangelization”, Ed. Larry L. Rose, C. Kirk Hadaway, An Urban World: Churches Face the Future , (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1984), pp. 160-161