Often when we are aiming to proclaim the gospel we are stuck in fear, or obligation, or discomfort. But it’s important to remember that when we proclaim the gospel powerful things happen. Jim highlights two motivations for gospel proclamation that help fuel our efforts.

When We Proclaim, Churches Are Planted

A big reason why we’re so eagerly seeking to plant churches is to see lost men and women come to know the forgiveness of their sins that can only be found in Jesus Christ. And when we share the gospel, churches are planted and grow with the gospel.

This September, we planted a church in rural Indiana with 22 people. In their launch they took their community groups through the Proclaim Course (https://proclaimcourse.org/) to motivate and equip their people in evangelism. And they just finished running their third Bridge Course (https://bridgecourse.org/) and their church now has more than 70 people attending each Sunday!

We also launched our first course in London last month and are working on translating the course into 3 more languages bringing the total number up to 10. Another exciting development is that we’ve modified our web site so that it can be viewed entirely in Spanish and we are working on doing the same thing in Chinese and other languages.

When We Proclaim, Lives Are Transformed

We have seen the power of God transforming many lives through the Bridge Course. Here’s a story that displays the incredible power of the gospel to redeem and restore. It’s from a woman named Julia. Her brother invited her atheist father to Bridge and he got saved a few years ago. And through their combined witness, God saved Julia in a dramatic way.

Here is some of Julia’s story.

“I’d spent the better part of the last decade willfully rejecting God. I mutilated God’s character and began a journey of self-discovery that I thought would lead to my deliverance but in fact promised to separate me from my Creator. In early May of 2016, I stepped boldly out of the closet, clothed in my new queer identity, and I leapt into the world’s embrace. I finally internalized the one lie that had haunted me from childhood: God does not love me. And I thought, if God could reject me, that means, I could reject Him too…right?”

“Years went by as I convinced myself I didn’t need His love, that I didn’t even want it. And yet, I searched for it with a screaming soul as I looked to others for the satisfaction that only God could give. I expected fulfillment from my relationships, but they left me hollow and increasingly desperate, until I became an open wound of unhealed hurts, unable to make it through a single day without breaking down and lashing out. The pressure was building, and I was scared that it would culminate in an irreversible act of self-injurious behavior. I had lost hope, resigned to the belief that this was just how it was, how it would always be.

“It was here, in the bottleneck of my distress, that my Father in Heaven offered me salvation through the patient persistence of my father and brother here on earth. It was early one morning when my brother Antonio again asked if he could read to me from the Psalms, and by God’s Grace alone, this time, I listened. Our dad joined, and four hours went by in which they testified and tenderly answered my questions.

“That same night, I invited Jesus into my life as my Treasure, Friend, Savior, and God. I wept with shame for my sins against Him, horror-struck by every rejection I had denied Him with. I looked upon the cross with new eyes, recognizing my sins hanging from our Creator as ribbons of flesh, and I wanted to look away, unable to bear the enormity of His suffering, but I’d soon learn at Bridge that this was how it had to be…decided before the beginning, outside of time and space: the solemn agreement. A selfless plan to save our wretched souls baked inside the most magnificent love story ever told, written to us as an invitation, while we were dead in our sin.

“On May 11th, 2024, almost 8 years to the day since I’d come out and traded God’s love for the fleeting promises of this world, Jesus, our Lord, called me by name, saying “you are mine.” On that day, He delivered me, and a peace settled into my bones, making a home for itself among the weeds.”

You can find the rest of Julia’s story here. Praise God for how he is using our churches to reach the lost. God is doing a great work. And we have the privilege of joining him in the unstoppable spread of the gospel.

So Keep Proclaiming

If we are Christians, we are people who have had their lives changed by the power of the gospel. We are like the demoniac Jesus heals in Mark 5:

“And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid…[18] As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him.” (Mark 5:15, 18)

But notice what Jesus tells him:

“And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.” (Mark 5:19-20)

May we keep proclaiming the gospel to our friends, telling them how much the Lord has done for us, that we might see more churches planted and more lives changed.

Jim Donohue is a pastor at Covenant Fellowship Church in Glen Mills, PA and the Director of Evangelism for Sovereign Grace Churches. Find more information about his work at the Proclaim Course which helps equip Christians to share the gospel, and the Bridge Course which introduces people to Jesus.