EVERYONE HIS WITNESS
Our Board of Evangelism is considering, as one tool for outreach, a new training course produced by The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod titled "Every One His Witness." We have already received the basic package, which includes a video and manuals. If you are interested in the program, check out the online resources at www.lcms.org/witness-outreach
"What?" you might think, "Lutherans don't do evangelism." I have run into this thinking in some congregations that I have served. I once even had two lay officers threaten to remove me from the pastoral ministry, because I encouraged the congregation in my preaching (at the most two or three times a year) to be involved in personal evangelism.
I don't know where the idea ever came that "Lutherans don't do evangelism." It didn't come from Luther, who wrote:"It is certain that a Christian not only has the right and power to teach God's word but has the duty to do so on pain of losing his soul and of God's disfavor" (Luther's Works 39:309). Luther also wrote: "Even though not everybody has the public office and calling [of the pastor], every Christian has the right and duty to teach, instruct, admonish, comfort, and rebuke his neighbor with Word of God at every opportunity and whenever necessary" (Luther's Works 13:333)
The program manual for Every One His Witness has a helpful summary on this issue:
God doesn't limit the sharing of the Means of Grace to the Divine Service nor to the Office of the Public Ministry. While the public preaching of God's Word and the administration of His Sacraments is work given by God specifically to the Office of the Public Ministry, the Lord has also provided for the Means of Grace to reach people through the priesthood of all believers (i.e., lay people). Every Christian has been called by God to share the chief means of Grace, the Word of God, with other people. Martin Luther saw this as more than a privilege of every believer, he understood it as our duty. (Mark A. Wood, Every One His Witness: Lutheran Evangelism Core Module [Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2017], 200).
Whether or not our congregation formally adopts the training program Every One His Witness for its members, or does something else, I hope and pray that everyone in Grace congregation regularly thinks about opportunities for witness and how he or she might "teach, instruct, admonish, comfort, and rebuke his neighbor with Word of God."
Yours in Christ,
