In this episode we talk with Bill about the lack of evangelism in our churches, how we can develop and deploy evangelists and how it all starts out of our growing relationship with Jesus.
In this episode we talk with Bill about the lack of evangelism in our churches, how we can develop and deploy evangelists and how it all starts out of our growing relationship with Jesus.
Transcript of Podcast by Multiply Network
Created to champion church multiplication, provide learning and inspire new disciple-
making communities across Canada
January 30, 2020 - Dr. Bill Hogg
Paul Fraser: Welcome to the Multiply Network Podcast, a podcast created to champion church multiplication, provide learning and inspire new disciple-making communities across Canada.
Hi there. Welcome to the Multiply Network Podcast. My name is Paul Fraser and I’m the host. Thanks for jumping on today, our very first podcast of the decade. Wow. No pressure, right? You’re going to love today’s episode though. It’s going to set the tone for our podcasts moving forward, I believe. It is with Dr. Bill Hogg. He has such a heart for people far from God. In this podcast we talk about evangelism, preaching the gospel, falling madly in love with Jesus – that sounds pretty important. And he comes with a wealth of expertise as a missiologist, speaker, trainer and has a desire to raise up evangelists in evangelism all over Canada, dropping timeless truths throughout this episode. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s got a killer Scottish accent and it’s coming up right now.
Q. Again we’ve got another great guest on the Multiply Network Podcast: Dr. Bill Hogg from BC. He is joining us today.
Welcome to the podcast.
Dr. Bill Hogg: Thanks Paul. Great to be with you today.
Q. It’s so great to have you and I have enjoyed our conversations. We’ve known each other now for a couple of years and have a similar heart for evangelism. And that’s what we’re going to spend the biggest chunk of our time talking about evangelism in Canada. I know you have a huge heart for that. But maybe introduce yourself to our audience. Obviously you’ve got a wonderful Scottish accent so I don’t think you picked that up here in Canada. Maybe tell us a bit of your story and how you got here.
A. Well, Paul, thanks. These are glorified vocal chords so that’s why I speak with a Scottish accent. There’s 2 kinds of people on the planet, 2 kinds of people in PAOC; those who are Scottish and those who wish they were Scottish! (Laughter) So the good news is when you put your trust and confidence in Jesus, when you pop your clogs you get a glorified resurrection body with glorified resurrection vocal chords and you’ll sound like this.
Q. Well, Fraser is Scottish.
A. Maybe that’s why we get on so well.
Q. We get along so well. My grand dad was born in Edinburgh so I’ve got some connection there. But you made the journey over here because God was leading you here.
A. Yes. It was a disruptive call from God back in the nineties. I was pioneering Youth for Christ in Scotland which was kick-started as really part of a resurgent evangelicalism after World War II. So people who were around then or students of contemporary church history would know that after World War II in North America we would probably call them apostolic leaders now, but back then they called them entrepreneurial leaders. So a guy called Torrey Johnson was part of God’s sandbox back then. Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life, wanted to buy a camp and his Board turned him down so he did an end-run around his Board, as entrepreneurs do ---
Q. Yes.
A. He got his Board Chairman to buy the camp and bought it back for a buck. So these were some of the players around then. One of these players was Torrey Johnson. His first hire was someone called Billy Graham, who was a Youth for Christ evangelist and there was this kind of spontaneous combustion around North America in Youth for Christ chapters, large scale proclamation evangelism. And obviously after the L.A. campaign Billy Graham became a North American and international figure.
Part of this Youth for Christ was launched in the UK and then it faded, so it had lain fallow for some time so my mandate was to pioneer Youth for Christ in Scotland. I got on the radar of a church in the United States. They made overtures for me to move across and become their youth pastor, which I was. Again the Lord spoke disruptively, prophetically, consistently and even the other day there in my reading I was reacquainted with some disruption-ism reading Genesis 12, where God disrupts this moon-worshipping pagan in Ur of the Chaldees. Abram, you’re on the move. You’re going to a different land. And part of that was obviously a big part, a catalytic role in God’s redemptive purpose.
Q. Of course.
A. And so that scripture and that figure became a disquieting presence in our lives. Just when you don’t expect them to pop up there’s old Abram leaving his father’s land, leaving his country and going to a land God will show him. So we moved to the US in ’95. I was involved in youth ministry, Youth for Christ, local church ministry, broadcasting and ran evangelistic soccer camps. And then was called to Canada and ended up in Canada as a pastor and then rather than giving you the life and times of Bill Hogg, if I keep it brief, in 2010 I was in South Africa. The Lord said to me that I’m redeploying you as an apostolic evangelist and I want you to work with Gord Fleming. I had no idea how those 2 things would intertwine or happen. This would be October-November 2010. But in 2012 I started with what was then Sea-to-Sea Network as a national missiologist. So I had the privilege of criss-crossing Canada meeting leaders and servants from different tribes and denoms and getting a sense of what God is up to across Canada and seeing some of the deficits and challenges as well as the fruitfulness of ministry across Canada.
Q. The times that I’ve sat in your sessions and in conversation it is really obvious that you have a great heart for people far from God. Even, you know, a greater heart to raise up leaders to actually go and be evangelists. And we’ll talk about kind of what you’re doing with Message Canada, you’re the National Director. That’s going to be a big part of what you’re doing in the future, raising up evangelists, doing events, that type of thing. So let’s talk about that a little bit later.
But as you mentioned you are a missiologist. But I don’t have to be a missiologist to look at the state of the church in Canada and realize that we’re not reaching our nation. There’s lots of reasons probably but one of them is just this idea of not seeing the evangelist, evangelism being a front burner issue in our churches. You’re wanting to change that. Why don’t you tell us maybe how did we get there?
A. That’s a great question, Paul. I think part of how we got here would be the rapid post World War II de-Christianization of Canada. So I probably spoke too long about evangelical resurgence after World War II. But Canada has kind of led the planet, got the silver or bronze in de-Christianization. So back in 1961 one-half of 1% of Canadians would say I have no religious affiliation whatsoever. Now, in 2020 it’s 1 out of 4. Here in BC it might be 35% and parts of Vancouver, British Columbia it would be nearer 60%. So my friends Mark & Carolyn Birch when he was providing leadership as a church planting network leader, took the neighbour out for supper one night. It’s one of those get-to-know-you, we’ve-never-sat-down-before meals, eats and meets. She said to Mark, “So what exactly is it you do Mark?” He said, “I help young leaders start brand new churches.” His neighbour said without a hint of disdain or contempt: “Do people still do that?” So that’s part of the milieu we’re in. That’s part of the air that we’re breathing, the de-Christianization which we would say maybe one of our dominant trends would be the rise of the ‘nones’ and the ‘dones’, those who have either no religious affiliation whatsoever versus you know what, I’m done. I’m done with church. I’m done with organized religion.
Then at the same time the church we see declining where perhaps 85% of Canadian churches have plateaued or declined. Now that’s using attendance and adherents as the metric there, the government metric, which isn’t the best missional metric but it says something. But it also says you can buck that trend if you had a farmer move from Manitoba to your congregation in Alberta and wow, all of a sudden, you are experiencing numerical growth and you’re not part of this sad 85%.
And then we say okay, the 15%, what’s going on there? And we don’t have really good data but our best guesstimate is that most of that would be transfer growth and perhaps would be 2% conversion growth. And then alongside that most churches operate like program central or a private club. So there’s not really an impulse to follow Jesus into the mission fields and more or less a more challenging environment. Jesus said that the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. So I think first and foremost we’ve got to fall in love with him.
Q. Um-hmm.
A. Baptized in the Spirit, drenched in the Spirit and captured in his heart. So it’s a heart issue. If I’m not in love with Jesus I’m a miserable so-and-so. If I’m not in love with Jesus and inhaling his manifest presence I don’t have much to offer. So there’s also a spiritual dynamic where we need to see widespread spiritual renewal, a quickening, a stirring, a visitation from the Lord. That little verse in Acts 3 plays around inside me from time to time. Repent, turn to me says the Lord…that we may experience times of refreshing. So I think we need refreshing in Canada. Our church needs refreshing. Our leaders need refreshing. Our volunteers, our youth pastors, pick a category. Guess what? We all need refreshing. We need to be infused with Holy Spirit life and power and we need to experience the loving tenderness of Jesus so that as his love seeps into the arid places of our hearts we can echo the Apostle Paul who says that the love of Christ compels me.
So these are some of the reasons. I would also say in addition to that Paul, many churches don’t preach the gospel so they are often off their script. And I’m going what are you doing? So I would come in as a guest speaker, as a resource person from time to time. I would evaluate and assess church planters, sometimes 4 or 5 assessments in a year. Other times I would sit in a congregation or a crowd or in a conference and I would have to ask the question: Where’s the beef? Where’s the gospel because the gospel has the power of God.
Some time ago David Nicholas, who planted Spanish River Community Church and launched a church planting network that has founded church planting across the planet was very disheartened by the lack of gospel preaching from the planters he was rubbing shoulders with. So he co-commissioned a research project with LifeWay in the States and I think it is maybe 8 or ten-year old news. But I think it has significance for us in Canada today, albeit an American survey.
He came up with his matrix of 6 ingredients. Has Paul Fraser, has Bill Hogg communicated the good news. So these were his 6 lenses to evaluate us. He and LifeWay got together and they evaluated one thousand sermons from evangelical churches on Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday. So you think you’ve got to hit the bull’s eye on Christmas Eve! What’s it all about? Jesus. Why has he come? Jesus will save his people from their sins.
Q. Yes.
A. He is Emmanuel: God with us. I think that is what I would preach. And then Easter Sunday of course we celebrate the greatest jail break in all history. Jesus is indestructible and he’s stronger than death!
Q. Yes.
A. So clearly, you know, you’re getting a leg up or if you like baseball, I don’t think you are put on first base there and you are kind of put on third base, I would say, Christmas and Easter Sunday.
His research determined that only 6% actually preached the gospel.
Q. Can I just stop right there? 6% on Easter and Christmas Eve?
A. Yes. I was talking too much. I should have said guess, Paul. Guess what percentage?
Q. That would have been great. We could rewind it and redo this but we won’t.
A. Let’s rewind it and say hey Paul, what percent is it?
Q. I can’t believe that. I can’t. I’ve never heard of that study before. But that is fascinating. 6%.
A. 6%. I’ll send you the link. And actually I was in conversation with a veteran evangelist when I was in Toronto in December. I quoted this. So we actually had a conversation and he phoned me after our two-hour meeting on New Year’s Eve just to re-engage. And there’s a book by David Nicholas which actually I just ordered to reacquaint myself with him: Whatever Happened To The Gospel? So you and I are laughing not because this is funny but because it is shocking.
Q. No. Yes.
A. You laugh at something that is embarrassing or shocking. But 6%. So what else have we got to offer if we can’t preach Jesus, his person, his work and his continuing ministry? If we aren’t declaring the beauty, the power, the sufficiency, the supremacy of Jesus and what God in Christ has accomplished for us and what he continues to offer and do, then preacher, shut up and go home. I would say turn your badge in. Hand your badge in. Put your gun on the table and walk away. That’s part of our malaise where we’ve got to recalibrate around the centrality of the gospel. Paul says I want to remind you of that which is first and foremost that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures. He was buried and he rose again on the third day, according to the scriptures. So if there’s no gospel there’s no power because the gospel is the power of God.
Q. Yes.
A. I mean, we Pentecostals love the power of the Holy Spirit. There is a missional power, a transformative power, and that’s the gospel. God’s saving power is released when we proclaim the gospel and if we don’t proclaim the gospel then people are left dead in their trespasses and sins. So people do attempt a Readers’ Digest best life now or moralism or legalism or some guy’s impression of how clever they are so they deliver a theological lecture but that’s not our mandate from Jesus.
Q. I have lots to dig into there. One of the things, just getting back to your first thought and it probably needs to go in this order. That unless you love Jesus, unless you have a thriving relationship with Jesus, like I don’t know if I’ve met anybody who has a casual relationship with Jesus but is an effective evangelist. Like I just don’t know if that can happen because in some ways you have to believe so heavily in what you are saying, connected to, so heavily to Jesus that it’s just like I can’t help but share and maybe for those, you know, just as I’m hearing you talk again, maybe my prayer in January for this year is I need to start there. I want my relationship with Jesus to overflow and to let evangelism be an overflow of what is happening on the inside.
A. That would be a great definition of evangelism: overflow. Some of us who were trained on those reductionist-sales-pitch-memorize-this-presentation and cram it in a Philistine’s head approaches, you really don’t need a loving fragrant intentional relationship with Jesus. You just need to be a parrot.
Q. Yes.
A. The New Testament suggests something radically different as God’s intention for you and me.
Q. Yes. So you go to churches. I can hear some pastors out there going okay, I’m with you Bill. I can get after the gospel. Maybe that’s a reminder for some pastors out there. You’ve got to preach the gospel. You’ve got to talk about Jesus and with all those things you said. And maybe that’s the first thing you do when you come into a church where you are assessing, you know, do you start with the pastor. How do you figure that out?
I haven’t sat in any of the training sessions you do. I know you go to churches and do training. So if there’s a pastor out there that’s saying I want to shift my church, maybe church planters out there even who have just recently started and want to start with the right DNA, what would you ---
Like are there 2 or 3 things that leaders can get started on that would move them to be more evangelistic first of all as a leader but then also as a church?
A. That’s a great question. I think you’ve hit on it in terms of preach the gospel not in a diluted or a reductionist way but in an accessible way. Charles Spurgeon said Jesus said feed my sheep not feed my giraffes! So don’t be obtuse and impressive. Communicate in a way that someone sitting there, maybe in their subconscious, maybe this would be great. My neighbour would get this, you know, Keller would talk about preaching to the neighbourhood. So there is this thing of how accessible, how gospel-infused is the gathering? How hospitable invitationally, but that’s only a piece of the pie.
Q. Right.
A. Because we gather and then we are gathered ---
So I think a planter or a pastor needs to lead the way so if they want a generous congregation they need to be generous with time and resources and money. If they want a praying congregation they need to lead the way in pursuing intimacy with Jesus and intercession. And if they want an evangelistic congregation you’ve got to lead the way. I think it’s tougher for a pastor in an established church because the institutional expectations imposed upon a pastor mitigate against what Paul said to Timothy: do the work of an evangelist. So people want babysat. They want a chaplain. They want programs and they think the pastor needs to be ---
Depending on the size of the church. If it’s a single-cell church the pastor needs to be everything. And the pastor’s wife or the pastor’s spouse, they need to be at everything too. Where’s your husband? Well, you’ve got eyes in your head. You can see he’s not here. But it’s like he should be here. You should be with us. Whereas Jesus says look out at the fields. They are white unto harvest.
So I think pastors have to extricate themselves from ---
A youth pastor being a program technician and providing recreation and adventures and baby-sitting ---
Build healthy significant relationships with pre-Christians.
Q. That’s a great thought. What else would you suggest to a church, to a leader?
A. I would think doing an assessment of your overall missional health. So, I mean, a pastor can be gung-ho for evangelism but depending on the governance and the board, the elders need to be living it as well because the leaders are the church in microcosm. They are really the DNA carriers. Lots of churches are fans of expressing their core values. Some imaginative souls just cut and paste from Willow Creek and then dump that on their flash page. But it’s not an aspiration or stated values that define the culture. It’s our led, it’s our inhabited, it’s our actual values. So to be praying for the lost, to be witnessing, to be thinking creatively about mission and innovation, that’s going to go beyond those few enthusiasts that we label evangelists, Canada’s endangered and threatened species. Somehow we’ve got to say whatever your gifting is in APEST; Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, Teacher, a leader, the exhortation is do the work of an evangelist. And then figure out ways recognizing in post-Christian pre-Christian Canada, people may take a long and winding road to come back to God. So we used to use the term pre-evangelism. What are you doing in terms of pre-evangelism? What are you doing in terms of on ramps? What are you doing to take the treasure of the gospel into the community? What are you doing to live as a community of blessing that takes serious the Jeremiah exhortation? Pray and work and live for the welfare of the city.
So thinking about holistic mission and thinking about blessing the poor, thinking that, guess what, it is not all about the weekend. In church planting a lot of church planters I think are planting worship services rather than planting communities on mission working for Jesus.
Q. Right. And I think people need to understand too as leaders you may not be the most gifted evangelist in your church.
A. Yes.
Q. While you need to be leading and modeling maybe there’s other people you need to empower to have them be the primary leaders. I think you’re right. I think there’s an expectation of pastors to be all things to all people all the time. And it’s just unfair because God didn’t gift spiritual leaders in the church with all the giftings. And just releasing the laity to actually be on mission you don’t need ---
Because I think what has happened is and you would probably agree with this, but you would probably push back if you disagree, is that we have reduced evangelism to a program or an event rather than, like, well, we’re going to be evangelistic on a missions trip. We’re going to be evangelistic around Christmas or we’re going to be ---
But then the rest of the year we’re not interested in talking to our neighbours. I think that needs to change. So how do we redefine evangelism in a healthy way? And I like the word you used even as it relates to the gospel, accessible. Because it’s probably every Christian’s biggest guilt; not being evangelistic enough. So how do we reframe it in a way that it’s clear, it’s accessible, that everyone can do it and maybe it’s not as difficult as we think.
A. Good thoughts, Paul. I think there would be widespread guilt if you want to make ---
We’re not called to be ministers of guilt but if you wanted to drop the guilt bomb on a gathering of God’s people, challenge people about their prayer life and about their evangelistic vitality.
Q. Yes.
A. And there would be widespread anxiety if you pressed into that. I think part of that would be for people the fear of rejection.
Q. I agree.
A. In the workplace it is inappropriate but with people who love and like and trust me, if I come on too hot and heavy with Jesus are they going to reject me and am I going to jeopardize the relationship? And then recognizing you don’t need to download the whole counsel of God in one fell swoop. So I would think from that great theological movie What About Bob? You remember crazy Bob Wiley had multiple neuroses and his road to wholeness was baby steps, baby steps. So I think evangelism is helping people take a baby step towards Jesus. Everybody’s got a story, every single child of God has a story of grace, transformation and redemption. Some are stark, dramatic, from nightmare to, you know, the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. Others are more subtle and enjoying an ongoing journey of transformation. You wouldn’t talk about a cataclysmic conversion but every single child of God whether you’ve had a Damascus Road experience or an Emmaus Road experience can talk about the difference Jesus has made in their life. So if you get people to share their story that would be a win. And then I think the sharing of your story can lead to the story of all stories, God's story, the good news of Jesus, the good news of the gospel. So I think sometimes people become paralyzed because they don’t know what to say.
Q. Yes.
A. But if you said to your neighbour what is your story, or if you said to your neighbour hey, why don’t we go out for coffee. I really would love to get to know you. What’s your story? And you sat back and listened and exercised uncommon discipline and didn’t talk they would probably talk for an hour uninterrupted.
Q. (Laughter)
A. And then at some point they might say what’s your story. Then there’s an opportunity for a child of grace to talk about sociology, to talk about ethnicity, to talk about origins or to say actually my story is shaped by Jesus of Nazareth. When I was a student in high school ---
And then you can share the story of how and why Jesus is significant here and now, not that he just plucked you out of adolescent anxiety. But now as a middle-aged person or as a thirty-something, Jesus is the center of your life and why. I think people in our Canadian culture kind of get off put by authoritative truth claims. They can’t push back on your story because it’s your story.
Q. Right.
A. So we kind of play cute with relativism and pluralism of our culture and say hey, this is my story. Stand down soldier. This is my story. This is my song, praising my Saviour all the day long.
But then to equip people in spiritual conversations, like what do you say?
Q. Yes.
A. So we’re into servant evangelism so you do something kind or say to everybody hey, random acts of kindness everyone. So you go to the grocery store and you see someone in front of you and you decide to buy their groceries so you shell out sixty-seven bucks for their groceries. And they turn and say wow, you’re such a really nice person. And what’s the gospel response? I’m a self-centered so-and-so. The only reason was kindness and love and tenderness and any other modicum of other centeredness in my life is because I’ve been racked and ransacked by the love of Jesus. It’s good to think yes, I’m a nice person, but what good does that do? You are exercising self-righteousness and reinforcing this moralism that nice people do nice things. Niceness isn’t a kingdom value and we’re not nice. I’m not okay. You’re not okay and that’s okay because Jesus came to transform us.
Q. Um-hmm.
A. So figuring out if people ask you a question how do you respond. You and I before this podcast were talking about Brexit, which is a case of leadership connected to it. My neighbour across the street after the vote which is of course a three and a half-year old story, she said to me, “Bill, you will be quite pleased.” I said, “With what?” The vote. I said, “Sue, what do you mean?” This was to do with Scottish independence so that was a different boat ---
Q. Yes.
A. That was the Scottish Referendum so that was an older story.
Q. Yes, yes.
A. She’s an atheist. And so she said, “Well, you’ll be really pleased that Scotland turned down independence.” I said, “Why would I Sue? Nationhood and self-government are generous gifts from a loving Creator.” Whew! Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Right?
Q. (Laughter)
A. So we can be cheeky. We don’t want to be abrasive or off-putting but we need to think not in a way that would be plastic-y and rote and rehearsed. But if someone asks you a question like when my wife was saved at a gospel concert she was radically transformed. She came into the home where her parents were hostile to Jesus and one day her mother had a bunch of women in for afternoon tea. One of them said, “Morag, look at you. You’re glowing. You have changed. Have you fallen in love, lassie?” And she said, “No, I’ve met Jesus.” So it was natural. And that was the right answer.
Q. Yes.
A. So it’s like give the right answer. Always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have. So there’s a suggestion in the New Testament, your life and mine, from time to time will actually provoke questions. And these questions need a gospel response and we trust from time to time our lives will provoke questions that only the gospel can provide the appropriate answer for.
Q. Yes. And I think responding in a way like, understanding what the gospel does for me and what Jesus has done for me brings humility and humility is such a beautiful vehicle to share truth. You know, Jesus was full of grace and truth. There is this humility that he would even teach with that while he was declaring truth the only people he got frustrated with were the religious. But he had an answer and I think just like that grocery story analogy. It’s like oh, that was very nice of you. I’m not very nice. In fact, left to my own devices I would want you to pay for my groceries! But because of ---
A. Right, right.
Q. But because of this wonderful gift of salvation through Christ ---
Humility just disarms people so much. And the second part I love, just to highlight again, is telling the story, telling your story, especially when asked is a powerful, powerful tool.
So I want to kind of bridge into a little bit of like so how do we raise up evangelists? How do we train them? How do we? And this kind of leads us to what you are working on and trying to pioneer. We have both talked before the podcast on how difficult at times it can be to pioneer a network. But that’s what you’re trying to do with Message Canada. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about the heart behind Message Canada and maybe where people can onramp and be a part of and be trained and resourced, just maybe share a little bit about that.
A. Sure. Happy to. So Message Canada is kind of a baby in diapers, a new ministry. It’s a thirty-two year old ministry that started in the UK under the leadership of an apostolic evangelist called Andy Hawthorne. The ministry has been so fruitful Queen Elizabeth gave him an O.B.E., so we need to call the CEO Andy Hawthorne, Order of the British Empire. Now why would she do that? For services to young people but also because the ministry was bearing fruit in some of the toughest gnarliest postal codes in the United Kingdom. You could see verifiable community transformation. Why?—Because people were becoming downwardly mobile for the sake of the gospel and sharing the good news amongst the poor.
So at this stage in Message Canada’s life we are about two things. One is deploying downwardly mobile urban missionaries who will live in gospel community in broken postal codes. Currently we have one such team. But you, Weary Listener, aye, you could be part of a new team and a new thing. We’ve got one team in the downtown east side of Vancouver. They have moved across there and are living in community there to share the hope of Christ, not just to bless the poor but to elevate the poor, led by Fari and we have opened an eat-in café as a Christ-centered social enterprise center. So the big idea of course we need Jesus. But if I’m being redeemed out of homelessness or addiction I need life skills. I need mentoring. I need a job. I need to rebuild my resume so there’s a holistic missional engagement through Eden following Jesus’ mandate in Luke 4 where he says the spirit of the Lord is upon me to bring good news to the poor. And at the same time through Advance we are wanting to identify, encourage, raise up a new breed and a new generation of Canadian evangelists.
Q. So just for clarity, what is Advance? Obviously it is under Message Canada. But is that another event?
A. Advance would be more of a network. Good clarifying question. We did an event in November. We did our first evangelists’ summit under Advance. Advance, if you like, is the brand of a network and of small groups of those stirred to do the work of an evangelist who would meet as a cohort to press into how clear and pure is your gospel. How clear and pure is your life? And are you taking every opportunity to proclaim Jesus and share Jesus. And then with a little bit of Tabasco can you preach Jesus, call people to Jesus? Don’t just talk about Jesus. Don’t just lift him up but invite wounded, broken, rebellious people to encounter his saving power.
So Advance is a network we’re building out where the idea is across the nation, maybe buried and suppressed and hidden are men and women who have been anointed by God to be evangelists.
Q. Right.
A. And we haven’t recognized them because largely I would say even amongst Pentecostal and Charismatic churches who understand five-fold ministry, largely we’ve organized our leadership structures around the dominance of the shepherd-teacher. So apostles end up in para-church organizations or heads of networks. Prophets, wow, how do we handle a prophet? And then the evangelist is really not embraced and we need to validate and affirm those who have a heart for the lost, almost a supernatural compassion for the lost, who have an anointing to communicate the good news of Jesus with uncommon winsomeness, authority and power.
Q. Right.
A. Put gas on their flame. We need the evangelist as an equipper but also just to jolly-well be an evangelist and spread the good news like the life-giving virus it is. So Advance is a network which started in the UK coming up to 3 years ago. Andy Hawthorne hand-picked twelve preaching evangelists, pulled them into his office and said I want to pour into you. I want to encourage you. I want to mentor you. I want to invest in you. Very organic.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago after he said to these twelve go thou and do likewise, we have journeyed together these past twelve or eighteen months, reproduced in the lives of others, they had a network of about two hundred fifty evangelists. We’re beginning to put structure and resources so there’s Advance Group Mentoring Guides. So if you and I are in an Advance group together we’re staring at the ceiling or staring at each other or being dominated by the loudest mouth in the room because evangelists can be loud mouths, there’s guard rails or guide rails of just curriculum where we press into gospel, Holy Spirit power, prayer, the call of the evangelist.
And a few months ago in England, October, 2019, they gathered seven hundred evangelists, the Advance network.
We’re way behind them in Canada. We’ve just done our first Summit but it seems like God is doing something because there’s Advance groups poking up in about fifteen or sixteen different nations where God is innovating the evangelist, multiplying the gift of the evangelist, encouraging the evangelist. So really what it’s about is identifying, encouraging, resourcing, equipping, releasing and multiplying the evangelists through a relational network where we’ve got a variety of tribes coming together around this common goal.
Q. Love it. It’s needed. Bill, this is an important thing because you’re right. We’ve placed maybe too much priority on certain aspects of five-fold giftings and we need the evangelist to rise up so we’re grateful. I’m grateful that you’re leaning into this. You are always a voice for that. And I appreciate you jumping on today.
Maybe I’ll just give you kind of the closing thoughts, lots of people listen to this podcast. A lot of our Pentecostal family, but others as well, maybe just give us an encouragement for 2020, you know, maybe something that God is laying in your heart, even for you and for others as it relates to reaching Canada. Like what do you feel maybe God is saying even in your own spirit?
A. Wow. That’s a good way to end, Paul. Thank you. I’ve heard the phrase bandied around so it is not a phrase I have originated, but the phrase “unprecedented harvest”. I think that is the heart of God for Canada but we’ve got to act. We’ve got to step into that. We’ve got to embrace that. So you and I have been part of conversations and in gatherings where we’ve been exhorted to and we’ve actually, at 10:02 we’ve set our iPhone to remind ourselves to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest field.
But why? Jesus said the harvest is plentiful. So in pre-Christian or post-Christian Canada, however you are going to label it, we can lose our gospel optimism. But I think God has a better day in store for us if we step out in spirit-filled obedience and look to the Holy Spirit who is the spirit of innovation and creativity. He’s the one who hovered over chaos in Genesis 1 and out of chaos came life and fruitfulness. And I think Pentecostals love the Holy Spirit, embrace the power of the Holy Spirit. But let’s also listen to the spirit and ask him for the way forward in 2020, carve out time to hear from the Lord and then doing the stupid thing, the daft thing, the simple thing, the Grade 4 thing, of actually doing what he says. Because he’s got a dream for every leader.
Q. Yes.
A. He’s got a dream for every congregation. He’s got a dream for every city and hamlet and town and village in Canada. And he wants us to keep in step with the spirit as it says in Ephesians. So I think there’s great days ahead. I don’t see the future as being chaos and decline and decay. I think God has a day where he wants to pour out his spirit in greater measure and he wants us to be out there in the harvest fields seeing broken men and women and lost, crushed young people encountering the love and power and presence of Jesus.
Q. Love it. Great thoughts. Thanks Bill, for that. For those that want to get a hold of you what is the best way to get a hold of you?
A. They could do email. Bill dot Hogg --- That is Hogg spelled H-o-g-g. Mercifully there’s 2 “g’s”. bill.hogg@messagecanada.org That’s probably the best way I would think to get in conversation. We’ve also got an Advance Canada website. We’ve got an intentionally under-developed Message Canada. (messagecanada.org) You will find my contact information there. But if you put Advance Canada groups into your search engine you will discover a website where I’m populating that with content to encourage evangelists and where there’s a free downloadable PDF of our Advance Group Mentoring Guide. I would love to keep tabs on what is going on. I have no desire to control it but if you download that Guide and start a group just let me know and if I can be an encouragement or a support in any way.
Q. Wonderful. Thanks for being a resource for us today and look forward to greater connections with you in the future.
A. Thanks Paul. God bless you.
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