Power Evangelism

John Wimber

Description

The message of Power Evangelism has been embraced around the world, and the book that started it all has become a classic, with more than one million sold. In 2006, Christianity Today named it one of the fifty most significant Christian books published in the past fifty years. This revised and updated edition describes the releasing of God's power through signs and wonders to refresh, renew, heal, and equip His people. Drawing from the teaching of the New Testament and with illustrations from his own experience, Vineyard leader John Wimber persuades the reader to "yield control of our lives to the Holy Spirit." Though Wimber died in 1997, his teaching continues to spread throughout the Vineyard movement, through the broader renewal movement, and to Christians across the globe, even those who do not consider themselves charismatic. Coauthor Kevin Springer--also a Vineyard pastor--has found that since its first publication, the influence of Power Evangelism has been explosive. This edition includes a chapter-by-chapter study guide and reflects changes Springer and other power evangelism practitioners have made in presentation--not in content--for readers in the new millennium.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781441269140
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

1986, 2009 John Wimber and Kevin Springer
Published by Chosen Books 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 chosenbooks.com
Chosen Books is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Chosen edition published 2014
ISBN 978-1-4412-6914-0
First edition published by Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. in 1986.
Second revised and updated edition published by Regal in 2009.
Ebook edition originally created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation , copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
Preface
How to Use the Study Guide
Introduction
Part 1: The Kingdom Has Come
1. A Powerful Experience
2. The Kingdom of God
3. Caught Between Two Ages
4. The Gospel of the Kingdom
5. Power and Authority
Study Session 1: The Kingdom Has Come
Part 2: The Power Encounter
6. The Fight
7. A War Zone
8. Christians, Too
9. Fearing God’s Power
Study Session 2: The Power Encounter
Part 3: Power Evangelism
10. A Remarkable Encounter
11. Power Evangelism
12. How I Discovered Power Evangelism
13. A Growing Church
Study Session 3: Power Evangelism
Part 4: The Divine Appointment
14. God’s Appointment Book
15. The Process of Conversion
16. Launching Points
17. Winning Whole Households
Study Session 4: The Divine Appointment
Part 5: Signs and Wonders and Worldviews
18. In the Eye of the Beholder
19. The Excluded Middle
20. How Do Westerners See the World?
21. How Jesus Saw the World
22. Power Wrapped in Love
Study Session 5: Signs and Wonders and Worldviews
Part 6: The Works of Jesus
23. Glimpses of God’s Love
24. Power Over Demons
25. Power Over Disease
26. Power Over Nature
27. Power Over Death
Study Session 6: The Works of Jesus
Part 7: Signs and Wonders in the Church
28. Christ’s Method of Discipleship
29. Keys to Discipleship
30. Commissioning Ministry
31. Transferring Ministry
Study Session 7: Signs and Wonders in the Church
Afterword: What Shall I Do?
Appendix A: Signs and Wonders in Church History
Appendix B: Signs and Wonders in the Twentieth Century
Appendix C: Turning the Evangelical Key
Appendix D: Power Evangelism and the Megachurch
Endnotes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
PREFACE
On October 6, 2006, Christianity Today published the results of a survey titled “The Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals.” The editors and a distinguished panel of 62 authors decided that Power Evangelism was the twelfth most influential book, just behind Richard J. Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and ahead of Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict .
John Wimber, who died November 17, 1997, would have been gratified to know that this book, which captured the heart and soul of his ministry, was so highly regarded today. This is why I was so pleased when the editors at Regal Books decided to publish a new edition of Power Evangelism .
When we wrote Power Evangelism in 1984, we never imagined that it would generate such remarkable influence. Terms in the book such as
“power encounter,”
“divine appointment,” “signs and wonders” and “power evangelism” itself are now common currency among Christians from a variety of traditions.
Power Evangelism , however, produced more than sales and popularity. Countless reviews and books have been written defending or attacking its ideas. Seminaries and Bible schools have sponsored theological symposiums to debate the pros and cons of power evangelism. Theologians and pastors have excoriated or championed what even we admit are radical—though in no way novel—concepts surrounding the Great Commission.
While I have been pleased to see that the influence of Power Evangelism has been considerable, it did not meet my expectations, at least in Western culture. The premise of this book is that Scripture teaches that power evangelism— the proclamation and supernatural demonstration of the kingdom of God —is the most effective way of winning followers of Christ.
Power evangelism encounters in the Bible and Church history result in families, villages and even communities dramatically converting to Christ en masse (see appendix A). Missionaries in developing and third-world cultures report similar phenomena (see appendix B). But we rarely hear of reports in North America and Western Europe such as Erlo Stegen’s ministry to the Zulus in South Africa, in which a woman was delivered of a demon and immediately returned to her village, preached the gospel and led hundreds to Christ. Oh, there are testimonies in Western culture of individuals being healed and, as a result, becoming followers of Christ. But rarely do witnesses to these miraculous encounters become believers themselves. Why?
There are many reasons (see chapter 20 ). None of these is mutually exclusive; taken together, they capture the mind of modern, Western men and women:
• Rationalism , not to be confused with rational thinking, seeks a rational explanation for all experience, making reason the chief guide in all matters of life. Supernatural events fly in the face of rationalism, and thus, a “rational explanation” explains away power evangelism.
• Individualism places an emphasis on independence and self-reliance, and with it the desire to control everything—people, things, events and even future events. Thus, the individual, not the group (family, clan, community) reigns supreme.
• Materialism assumes that nothing exists except matter and its movement and modifications; only what can be seen, tested and proved is real. This warps our thinking, making us live as though the material world is more real than the spiritual, blinding us to the supernatural.
• Relativism denies that there are absolute truths, making all “truth” dependent on personal experience. Thus, when someone encounters God and becomes a follower of Christ, those around him or her say, “That’s truth for you, but it isn’t truth for me.”
• Secularism is a lethal combination of the above; the idea that we live in a material universe that is closed off from divine intervention. Because power evangelism presupposes that God does intervene in the affairs of men and women, the secularist rejects it a priori .
All of these trends have dovetailed to transform Western culture into what today is commonly called the “post-modern era.” We live in a pluralistic society that is skeptical of any objective truth—whether scientific, religious or philosophical—as a way of understanding reality. Thus, post-moderns believe there is no “true truth,” to borrow a term from Dr. Francis Schaeffer, from which we can make spiritual or moral sense of the world.
This means that similar power evangelism events in, say, a small village in the Amazon and in Manhattan will have dramatically different responses and interpretations among the witnesses. For example, the response to a physical healing in the name of Jesus (and with it the clear articulation of the gospel) in a remote Amazon village would likely result in many other conversions among the villagers. The villagers would interpret the event as a supernatural encounter with God, and they would accept the explanation of who that God was from those who prayed for the healing. The witnesses would see what happened as applying to their own lives and become Christ followers.
Those living outside of Western culture tend not to be blinded to the supernatural by secularism and post-modernism (see chapter 19 ). To them, the world is not limited to the material, and God is active in the affairs of everyday life. And they hold their clan and community in high regard; they are not individualistic. Thus, power evangelism events in these cultures touch whole groups of people.
In Manhattan, witnesses to a similar power evangelism event would not see it as relevant to themselves. They would tend to seek an alternative explanation for what happened, perhaps calling it a hoax or a misunderstood medical anomaly. They might even acknowledge it is real for the person being healed, and that’s all that mattered. Thus, power evangelism does not carry the punch in Western culture that it does in much of the developing or ancient world.
One pastor of an evangelical church in Alaska illustrated the skepticism among believers regarding the supernatural. A member of his church witnessed several healings while on a short-term mission trip to Peru, something he shared with the entire congregation. The next day, a member of the church told the pastor that the missionary “was either lying or deluded!” I asked the pastor if the skeptic believed in the resurrection of Christ. “Yes, he does,” the pastor replied. “He just doesn’t believe anything supernatural can happen today.”

While cultural trends help to explain the unmet expectations of power evangelism in the West, they are far from the only factors. “American Idol Christianity”—the idea that superstar leaders are the exclusive spokespeople for Christ—also hamstrings the Church’s witness.
John Wimber believed that God called rank-and-file believers to a powerful influence on the world. He was passionate about the idea that all believers have the gifting and abilitie