In the New Tes­ta­ment, the term “evan­ge­lism” specif­i­cally refers to the good news of the king­dom of God. “To evan­ge­lize” lit­er­ally means to pro­claim the good news of God’s reign. Jesus came “pro­claim­ing the good news of the king­dom, and cur­ing every dis­ease and every sick­ness” (Mt. 9:35).* In Luke 4:43, Jesus says that his cen­tral pur­pose was to “pro­claim the good news of [lit­er­ally, “evan­ge­lize con­cern­ing”] the king­dom of God.” Again in Luke 8:1, Jesus’ procla­ma­tion of the king­dom of God is described as “evan­ge­liz­ing.” We read in Acts 8:12 that Philip “evan­ge­lized about the king­dom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” (lit­er­ally trans­lat­ing the Greek text. See also Mt. 4:23, 24:14; Luke 16:16).

Con­sis­tently in the New Tes­ta­ment, evan­ge­lism is con­nected with the procla­ma­tion of the king­dom of God and the demon­stra­tion of the real­ity of that king­dom. In the Bible, evan­ge­lism is not lim­ited to what might be called con­ver­sion evangelism—winning con­verts to Jesus Christ. Bib­li­cally speak­ing, evan­ge­lism cov­ers much more than this, because it con­cerns the com­pre­hen­sive mes­sage of God’s reign.

Four Dimen­sions of Evangelism

What, then, does evan­ge­lism really mean, bib­li­cally speak­ing? If evan­ge­lism means announc­ing and embody­ing God’s reign so that God’s will truly is done on earth, then evan­ge­lism may be pic­tured in this way:

In this view, evan­ge­lism is all about the king­dom of God. Evan­ge­lism means mak­ing Jesus Christ and his king­dom known through the church, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Con­sider these four dimen­sions of evangelism:

Con­ver­sion Evangelism

Con­ver­sion evan­ge­lism is pro­claim­ing and show­ing by our lives that Jesus Christ is Sav­ior and Lord—the one who came into the world to save sin­ners. The mis­sion of the church is to lift up Jesus Christ so that peo­ple may be con­victed of their sins, repent and believe in him, and receive the abun­dant life he offers.

Con­ver­sion evan­ge­lism is pre­em­i­nently the work of the church, the Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity, not just of indi­vid­u­als or spe­cial­ized orga­ni­za­tions. As the body of Christ, a faith­ful church makes Jesus vis­i­ble in the world. As it shows forth Christ, peo­ple are won to faith in him and become part of the com­mu­nity of believ­ers. The church, then, has a cen­tral role in evan­ge­lism. Its mis­sion is to pro­claim him, show forth the real­ity of Jesus in its com­mu­nity life, and be the com­mu­nity that then wel­comes and nur­tures “those who [are] being saved” (Acts 2:47).

Many Chris­tians use the term evan­ge­lism only in the sense of con­ver­sion evan­ge­lism. But this is too nar­row a view. Evan­ge­lism means announc­ing and embody­ing the full mes­sage of the kingdom.

Dis­ci­pling evangelism

Dis­ci­pling evan­ge­lism means the church mak­ing dis­ci­ples, not just con­verts or church mem­bers. Jesus’ com­mis­sion is to “make dis­ci­ples … , teach­ing them to obey every­thing” that he com­manded (Mt. 28:19–20).

The true church is a com­mu­nity of dis­ci­ples, not just of believ­ers. Its mis­sion is to vis­i­bly rep­re­sent Jesus and his king­dom in the world. But this will not hap­pen unless churches pay care­ful atten­tion to disciple-​​building.

The goal of disciple-​​making is to form a com­mu­nity that looks and acts like Jesus Christ; that shows forth the char­ac­ter of Christ in its social con­text. The church does this by being a rec­on­ciled and rec­on­cil­ing com­mu­nity. It does this most effec­tively when it gives vis­i­ble wit­ness to rec­on­cil­i­a­tion between rich and poor, men and women, and peo­ple of dif­fer­ent racial and eth­nic identities.

Jus­tice evangelism

Jus­tice evan­ge­lism means liv­ing out the right­eous­ness and jus­tice of God’s reign within the church’s social context—locally and glob­ally. Here the church takes seri­ously the bib­li­cal man­date to work for jus­tice in all areas of soci­ety, with par­tic­u­lar con­cern for the poor and oppressed. Here the church engages key issues of jus­tice in the world—entrenched poverty, destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment, eth­nic and reli­gious vio­lence, oppres­sion of women and chil­dren, abor­tion, and the cul­ture of war­fare and mil­i­tarism. Evan­ge­lism that does not include this jus­tice dimen­sion is not really evan­ge­lism in the full bib­li­cal sense.

Cul­ture evangelism

Cul­ture evan­ge­lism means shap­ing the soci­eties and cul­tures of the world through the truth of the king­dom of God. It means engag­ing soci­ety in all sectors—the arts, eco­nom­ics and edu­ca­tion, sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy, phi­los­o­phy and in world­view. This dimen­sion of evan­ge­lism calls Chris­tians in all sec­tors of soci­ety to give trans­form­ing wit­ness to the truth of the gospel.

The Bible presents a pic­ture of real­ity (world­view) and a nar­ra­tive (world­story) that is dis­tinctly dif­fer­ent from all the world’s philoso­phies, myths, reli­gions, and ide­olo­gies. Scrip­ture reveals God’s truth, demon­strated supremely in Jesus Christ and in his reign. So cul­ture evan­ge­lism is essen­tial if soci­eties are going to be trans­formed to reflect the real­ity of the king­dom of God.

These four dimen­sions of evan­ge­lism are, of course, closely inter­twined. Together they form one pic­ture: the procla­ma­tion and liv­ing out of the reign of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. Holis­tic mis­sion means com­bin­ing these four dimen­sions of evan­ge­lism in one within each local church, and in the church globally.

A Holis­tic Mission

An impor­tant aspect of this bib­li­cal pic­ture of evan­ge­lism is that it engages every­one in the Chris­t­ian community—every believer and dis­ci­ple. The priest­hood of believ­ers and the diver­sity of spir­i­tual gifts are key here. Within the church, the Spirit gifts believ­ers to be wit­nesses and evan­ge­lists in dif­fer­ent ways. First Corinthi­ans 12 thus takes on added mean­ing. We learn prac­ti­cally that there are “dif­fer­ent kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit dis­trib­utes them. There are dif­fer­ent kinds of ser­vice, but the same Lord. There are dif­fer­ent kinds of work­ing, but in all of them and in every­one it is the same God at work” (1 Cor. 12:4–6 TNIV).

The work of the Holy Spirit is to make Jesus Christ and his king­dom known and vis­i­ble in the world. Holis­tic mis­sion rec­og­nizes this broader bib­li­cal under­stand­ing of evan­ge­lism, and the essen­tial role of God’s par­tic­u­lar gifts and call­ings that Jesus Christ may be exalted and his king­dom made visible.