Anglican evangelism is communal, constantly sprouting and spreading from within the Covenant Community of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church. God gifts and calls His people to serve the church and be light to the world outside the gathered People of God. In the Old Testament, God called Israel to be His special Covenant People, “a light to the Nations”. While they did not fulfill this task due to their disobedience to their sovereign God, Jesus Christ, the light of the world, DID!
Through his life, death, and resurrection, the Lord accomplished the way of freedom and salvation for all humankind. In following our Lord by repentance and faith through the mystery of Baptism, we join the New Covenant People of God in worshiping and knowing this wonderous, Triune God, bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a world in need of forgiveness and reconciliation with their Creator. While the church sends out evangelists gifted explicitly in sharing the good news of salvation, they are sent from within the community of Christ, which is the vehicle of salvation in the world. Also, the very nature of our Worship is evangelistic, as the Gospel is at the center of what we preach, pray, and engage in the sacraments.
By our particular vocations, dictated by the spiritual gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit, we live, love, and engage the created order around us. In doing so, we reveal the faithful and obedient life of Jesus Christ as we are continually “conformed to the image of the son”. Every task and vocation we engage in is valuable and is a potential revelation of our God as we live in His “likeness” in the world that He has created (and redeemed). The Gospel is often lived as a message before it can be verbally proclaimed and understood by those living in darkness. Most Christians in their spiritual vocations will need to genuinely love and live out their faith before the words about (and by) Jesus can be heard by those around them. However, there is a time to speak clearly and boldly of the need of sinful humanity and the gracious salvation that Jesus offers everyone in the world.