Without evangelism, no one becomes a committed Christian, and without evangelism, no one continues to grow into a vital Christian maturity. If this task is not done, the Christian community cannot exist; if it is not done continuously in the Christian community, it may soon degenerate into a formal religious institution. ...
The life and work of the church depends upon the primacy of the apostolic mandate. The outsider has no ordinary way of knowing the gospel except he be brought the mes sage. Discipleship is not self-generated. And even in the life of the Christian congregation, it is impossible to separate the apostolic man date from the various ministries of the church whether education, pastoral care, worship, or social service and action. The gospel of Jesus Christ must be the constant motivation for all the ministries of the church, or they cease to be infused with the dynamic of commitment and re-commitment. Evangelism is not the only ministry of the local congregation but it does come first if it is to exist at all; and it must remain first if it is to keep its sense of commitment alive. This does not mean that every congregation will be seeking to convert its people over and over again! That is a distortion of the Christian enterprise and makes it into a continuous recruiting station without reference to education and training for the issues of the committed life.
The late Professor Karl Heim of Tuebingen once said that when the apostolic dynamic was lessened in the church, it was like throwing the master switch of a great factory that stopped the entire machine. Without the apostolic dynamic, a congregation may be a religious establishment and even a successful institution, but it has lost its soul.
