Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. My sisters and brothers, the Lord is with you! It’s truly an honor to be with you at your inaugural PFTK conference.
The Holy Spirit is moving and bringing new life in many ways and in many places, and Presbyterians For the Kingdom is, in my view, a sign of what the Holy Spirit is doing, bringing hope to the Presbyterian Church, and to mainline bodies that have lost their way. My prayer is that this will be the first of many conferences to come.
Prayer: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, We gather under Your authority and in Your mercy. Purify our hearts in holiness. Steady our minds in what is good and true. Strengthen our resolve as we persevere in the faith once delivered to us. And awaken in us passion and boldness for evangelism. Open your Word to us now. Reorient our fears. Reignite our love. Send us not as managers of outcomes, but as witnesses of Your reign. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, and the Holy Spirit. One God, now and forever. Amen.
I want to begin with a confession. If you say the word evangelism in many Presbyterian or mainline circles, the emotional temperature drops several degrees, and anxiety and consternation spike.
As Rebecca Manley Pippert observes in Out of the Saltshaker and into the World: Christians and non-Christians have something in common: We’re both uptight about evangelism.1
Why is that so? For many of us, it stems from a heavy sense of guilt or simple fatigue. For others, it’s the fear of saying the wrong thing. Often, it’s a more fundamental gap: a lack of training or the kind of deep discipleship formation that turns a duty into a natural overflow of the heart. Many are unwittingly influenced by Origen’s unorthodox, universalist view of salvation: When universalism takes root in a denomination or movement, you can expect:
- Decreased emphasis on conversion.
- Reduced missionary sending.
- Less clarity about repentance and faith.
- Greater focus on social ethics than proclamation.
- Evangelism reframed as dialogue rather than summons. Or out of suspicion.
Finally, we struggle with the E word because all of us feel the weight of cultural resistance.
We live in a world that feels less like Jerusalem and more like Galilee—pluralistic, skeptical, spiritually crowded, politically tense. A world where faith is tolerated privately, but contested publicly.
And yet it is precisely in Galilee that Jesus gives the Great Commission. That is not accidental.
I. The context
If you have your Bible with you, let’s turn to Matthew 28:16–20 “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”
Notice how Matthew gives us geography before command. Jesus started his ministry in Galilee: Matthew 4:15–16: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” Matthew says, this was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah.
Jesus, the Light of the World, began His ministry in Northern Israel—a region scarred by the Assyrian conquest of the eighth century BC. What was once the heart of the kingdom had become ‘Galilee of the Gentiles,’ a crossroads of foreigners, ethnically and culturally blurred. It was a polyglot of competing religious and pagan practices—and under the weight of Roman oppression, a land simmering with political instability. Into this very darkness, the Light dawned. For faithful Jews, Galilee was not the center of purity and power; we are talking about the margins. Messy, mixed, and morally unpredictable.
Jesus started his ministry, and now he launches his disciples to continue his ministry from this region. And then notice Matthew’s stunning line in verse 17: “When they saw him, some worshiped him; but some doubted.” Some were hesitant, uncertain, given all that transpired with the arrest, crucifixion, and now resurrection of Jesus. But here’s the hopeful thing: The Great Commission is not given to spiritual elites. It is given to worshipers whose faith is still trembling. That alone recalibrates how we think about evangelism. Evangelism does not flow from certainty. It flows from allegiance.
II. Authority before activity
In vs. 18: Jesus comes near and says, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Before command, comes coronation. Before strategy, there is sovereignty. Evangelism does not begin with charisma, programs, or persuasion. It begins with this reality: We are not trying to install Jesus as King. We are announcing that he already reigns. And so orthodoxy anchors evangelism here. If Jesus has all authority, then witness is not salesmanship. It is testimony to truth.
I want you to notice what Jesus does not do. He does not remove their doubts, he redirects their gaze. Their confidence is not located in their psychological stability. It is located in his cosmic authority. That my sisters and brothers is HOPE. Jesus reigns!
III. What exactly is the command?
Look at Matthew 28:19–20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
You know this, but it is worth repeating: The force of the command is not to make converts, but while going, Jesus says, make disciples. This is the church’s perennially incomplete task. In case you are wondering, disciples are apprentices of the King. Baptism is public allegiance to the King. You tell the world you belong to the King. Teaching is sustained formation. That’s why orthodox teaching in our congregations is essential to the task of discipleship and formation. Obedience is the visible shape of loyalty to the King. For pastors, church leaders, and seminary professors, this matters profoundly to the future of healthy, vibrant, disciple-making congregations.
Friends, the Great Commission is not merely about increasing decisions, or adding names to the membership roll. It is about forming communities of embodied obedience. If we reduce evangelism to an altar call, but neglect apprenticeship, we truncate the Commission. This is important. The gospel is not just how you get saved; it is how you make sense of all of life. Evangelism is not simply about helping someone pray a prayer. It is inviting them into a completely new way of being human under the reign of King Jesus. The Church does not exist to produce spiritual consumers; it exists to cultivate surrendered disciples who make disciples, who make disciples. That is evangelism in its full biblical weight.
IV. Two traps in Galilee of the nations to avoid
When Christians face a pluralistic, pagan culture, we tend to fall into one of two traps:
1. Avoidance
And we heard that yesterday in Sarah’s helpful message, didn’t we? In an effort to maintain what we think is holiness, we retreat into safe subcultures, or Christian bubbles, with Christian jewelry, Christian plumbers, and Christian restaurants. Sure, we preserve orthodoxy, but we lose proximity.
2. Assimilation
We blend so thoroughly into culture, worship the same idols, adopt the same cultural values around sexuality, and the same passions, that our distinctiveness disappears, and we have nothing to offer the culture around us.
In both cases, the church becomes invisible and irrelevant. We lose our saltiness. But Jesus offers a third way: Engaged distinctiveness. So holiness is not retreat, nor is it dissipated by blending in. It becomes luminous difference.
In a culture ruled by consumerism, holiness looks like contentment. In a culture of outrage, holiness looks like patience. In a culture of self-creation, holiness looks like joyful surrender. And in a culture of anxiety, holiness looks like settled trust. A holy church makes the gospel visible before it is verbalized.
The late R.C. Sproul once said that the purpose of witnessing is to make something manifest that is hidden —that it is the task of the church to make the invisible kingdom visible. We do that by proclamation, yes. But also by modeling justice, mercy, and the life of God in community. That is what Jesus is forming in Galilee—not a marketing team, but a visible colony of the kingdom of God.
V. Called to be witnesses, not managers of outcomes
This is where evangelism often collapses for leaders. We subtly begin acting like managers of outcomes. If I say it right. If I structure it well and memorize my lines. If I build the right program. But Jesus has already said, All authority has been given to me. The first act of evangelism is relinquishing control.
Years ago, my mother tried to “manage” my father’s return to faith. He had walked away. He was antagonistic toward the church. Alcohol had hollowed him out. My mother debated him, gave him books he never read, pressed arguments he resisted, invited him to church, and preached at him.
There came a point where she was exhausted. Finally, she prayed a simple prayer: “Father, I can’t change Vivian. I give him back to you.” She stopped managing. She stopped arguing. She started trusting. She prayed. She listened. She loved. Many years later, Judith and I were married. We have a little baby girl; my father visits us during Thanksgiving. He loves to cook. He is standing in our kitchen with Judith, and Judith gently asks him, “Papa, when are you going to surrender your life to Jesus?” My dad broke down and started weeping. You see, the Holy Spirit had been calling, wooing his heart for years, in ways we didn’t see. He saw the love and witness of his children and his wife. He heard more than the gospel; he saw the gospel in living colors through our lives. And that Thanksgiving, he opened his heart, and he believed and surrendered his life to Jesus. My mother’s surrender made room for God’s sovereignty. Evangelism begins when we stop managing outcomes and start bearing witness to what the Father is already doing.
VI. What Galilee-shaped evangelism looks like in practice
Let me tell you where I first saw this lived out. I grew up in Jamaica, baptized and discipled in a vibrant Pentecostal church. It was there I learned to pray, to read Scripture, to love people who did not yet know Jesus. Evangelism was not a program. It was not a script. It was not anxiety. It was the natural overflow of a life with God. No one pressured us into techniques. No one taught us any techniques. We were formed in worship, holiness, and prayer — and from that soil, witness grew naturally. Healthy churches make evangelism feel normal. That is what I mean by Galilee-shaped evangelism.
We see it embodied in St. Paul. In Athens (Acts 17), he walks the city of Athens before he speaks. He listens. He observes. He quotes their poets. This is presence before proclamation. To the Thessalonians, he says he shared not only the gospel of God but his own life as well. This is relational credibility. And throughout his ministry, Paul trusts the Spirit’s power. He knows conversion is not something he manufactures. Faithfulness is ours; transformation is God’s.
Evangelism in our moment may look less like pressure and more like prayer. Less like closing a deal, and more like listening. Less like selling and more like loving.
VII. The Spirit’s outward movement
Luke tells us what happens next. Before the disciples launch into mission, Jesus tells them: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses.” Notice the geography and the range of their witness—Jerusalem. Judea. Samaria. Ends of the earth.
In other words, witness at home to people like you, to people you avoid. In places you fear. The Spirit always moves outward. The Spirit’s power is not given to make us impressive. The Spirit is given to make us witnesses. The Triune God is already at work in your Galilee. We are not bringing Jesus into dark spaces. We are naming the light already shining in those dark places.
VIII. Leadership-level application
Let me speak directly to pastors and church leaders. What would it look like for your ministry context to become a community of witnesses rather than a vendor of religious goods? What if evangelism were not a department, but a culture? A Culture:
Where prayer for neighbors is normal.
Where hospitality is intentional.
Where questions are welcomed.
Where holiness is visible.
Where discipleship is rigorous and joyful.
If we want evangelistic churches, we must form evangelistic disciples.
James Montgomery Boice once said that the greatest hindrance to evangelism in the world today is the failure of the church to supply evidence in her own life and work of the saving power of God.2 And he is right. The world does not need a louder church. It needs a truer one which practices the following:
Clear teaching.
Deep community.
Visible obedience.
Non-anxious leadership.
The greatest hindrance to evangelism today is not hostility from the culture. It is the absence of embodied evidence in the church. But when a community lives under the authority of King Jesus, trusts the Spirit, and loves its neighbors, evangelism ceases to feel like an intrusion. It feels like an invitation.
IX. The promise
Matthew ends with this—“I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Then Acts begins with the promise—“You will receive power.”
Taken together: you are not alone. You are not the source. You are not the manager. You are a witness. As you leave this conference, you are walking down the mountain and back into your Galilee. In a secular culture, evangelism looks different than it did in a nominally Christian one. You cannot assume shared authority, shared vocabulary, or shared moral instincts. So the approach must be patient, relational, and clear.
Here is what it actually looks like on the ground. First, start with presence before persuasion. In a secular setting, trust precedes truth claims. Show up. Work well. Listen carefully. Be the kind of person whose life raises quiet questions. In Acts, Paul reasoned in synagogues, but he also lived among people. Credibility matters.
Second, learn the cultural story people are living inside. Secular culture is not neutral; it has its own beliefs about freedom, identity, happiness, spirituality, and progress. Ask thoughtful questions: What do you think makes a good life? What gives you hope? What do you fear losing? Evangelism begins by understanding the longings underneath objections.
Third, frame the gospel as good news, not cultural nostalgia. The message of Jesus Christ is not “return to the 1950s.” It is the announcement that the crucified and risen King is Lord. In Matthew 28, King Jesus confronts every rival authority—career, self-definition, politics. In secular culture, that will sound exclusive. But clarity is kindness.
Fourth, expect questions and don’t panic. In John 1:46, Nathanael asks, “Can anything good come from Galilee?” Philip does not collapse into a debate. He says, “Come and see.” You do not need exhaustive certainty to invite someone into exploration. Doubt does not disqualify witness.
Fifth, make the church visible. Secular people often distrust institutions but are moved by embodied community. Invite them to dinner before you invite them to church. Let them see repentance, forgiveness, and joy in real time. Evangelism is both proclamation and demonstration.
Sixth, be explicit at some point. Kindness alone is not evangelism. There must come a moment when you articulate who Jesus is, what he has done, and why allegiance to him matters. In secular settings, people may respect your faith for years without ever knowing what you believe unless you say it plainly.
Finally, pray for courage and patience. Evangelism in our secular age is often slow. It may take years. You are not closing a deal; you are bearing witness. The outcome belongs to the Spirit. In a culture like ours, where professional identity and influence are central currencies, evangelism often begins by quietly but visibly living under a different authority. When someone asks why you make certain decisions, forgive certain offenses, or resist certain compromises, that is your opening.
The Triune God is already there. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And God’s witnesses say, amen!
Prayer
Would you pray with me?
Father of all authority, we praise You that the kingdom is not fragile, and the mission is not ours to manage.
Lord Jesus Christ, risen and reigning over heaven and earth, forgive us for the ways we have tried to control what belongs to Your sovereign hands. Forgive us for fear. Forgive us for silence. Forgive us for speaking without love. Holy Spirit, You who go before us into every Galilee, free us from anxiety about outcomes. Make us faithful witnesses. Give us courage without harshness, clarity without pride, patience without passivity. Form in us churches that are luminous with holiness, anchored in truth, steadfast in perseverance, and joyful in evangelism. Teach us to pray for names, not numbers. To love people, not projects. To embody the gospel we proclaim. As we leave this place and descend the mountain, send us into our Jerusalems, our Judeas, our Samarias, and to the ends of the earth—confident not in our strength, but in your promise: “I am with you always.” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, keep us faithful until the end of the age. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
This address was delivered on March 2, 2026, at the Presbyterians for the Kingdom conference at Providence Presbyterian Church, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Notes
- Rebecca Manley Pippert, Out of the Saltshaker and into the World (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 15.
- James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), 112.
