Rev. Mike Pilavachi, co-founder and senior pastor of Soul Survivor Warford in the United Kingdom, recently explained how to evangelize—and how not to evangelize—in a sermon. Pilavachi uses his own early days as a Christian as a cautionary tale. He says he had a radical conversion and became obsessed with trying to lead others to Christ. He bought a bunch of gospel-themed stickers from a local Christian store and started posting and sticking them all over his town, hoping to saturate his city with the gospel. Then he overheard a fellow believer complaining about the mystery person who was annoying the town with gospel-themed vandalism. She called him a “bad witness.”
Pilavachi says that his experience shows in many ways, the church has driven people away from the gospel—rather than toward it—through misguided evangelistic zeal. Evangelism is important, but it’s important to do it the right way—and no one offers a better model than Jesus himself, Pilavachi says.
“We’ve also got to be the gospel,” Pilavachi says. “We can’t just preach the gospel and not be the gospel, because people listen to who we are, not just to what we say. … The point isn’t how they respond. The point is that we show the love of Jesus. Some people will respond, and some people won’t.”
Listen to his message and hear how Jesus embodies true Spirit-filled evangelism through his encounter with the woman at the well.
