by Chito Tolosa

New Program Director

The new GX Program Director is Bro. Ed Tolosa. He took over for Bro. Chito Tolosa, who passed away last year. A new team has been trained by Ed for door-to-door evangelism.

Evangelism and missions, in their simplest form, have to do with communicating the Gospel. The word gospel comes to us from the Greek word euangelion, which literally means “good message.” In the Greek, euangelion referred to any type of good report, especially those in military or political contexts.

When Jesus began His public ministry, He came “preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God” (Mark 1 :14), calling the people to repent for “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17b). This was an announcement of an wonderful new state of affairs; God was at work in time and space to bring about the government of the promised Messiah.

As Jesus’ apostles took the Gospel into all the world, however, their preaching and writing referred more to “the gospel of Christ”(Romans 15:29). The church was proclaiming the Good News of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. This was the same message; the focus had merely shifted from the kingdom to the King. And above all, it was “the gospel of God”(Rom.1:1), the Good News to man from God, who declared Jesus to be the Messiah, most powerfully by raising Him from the dead. So the Gospel is God’s message about Christ, and when we communicate the Gospel, we are, in a real sense merely repeating to the world what God has said.

Jesus employed a very significant word for this task in Acts 1:8, saying His disciples would be His “witnesses.” In the New Testament, to bear witness to something is to call attention to it. When “witness” is applied to the work of the church, we see that our task is to call attention to the King and His kingdom; we are to make visible what is invisible to a lost and dying world. Christians do this in a host of ways: by loving one another, by keeping the Lord’s Supper, by feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, and even by dying for the faith. Any activity that calls attention to Christ falls under the heading of “witness,” evangelism and missions included.

MEDITATE…

It is ironic that “to witness” has to do with calling attention to Christ-we’re often reluctant to witness because we fear calling attention to ourselves. Somehow we must overcome this hesitation. Examine your heart: What do you fear? Ridicule? Loss of social status? The mockery of worldly friends? Seek to please Christ, not men.