Who amongst us is an evangelist?

[AlexanderPetzinger]

Dear Believer in Christ:

When I applied to post here on PuritanBoard earlier this year, I was asked if I held any office in the Reformed Church that I attend here in Yuba City, CA. The choices were:

Pastor/Teaching Elder
Ruling Elder
Deacon
Doctor (don't know what this is referring to)
Evangelist
Pastoral Intern

I chose none because I had just become a formal member of the First Reformed Church here in my town (member of the RCUS.org). Who on this board considers themselves an evangelist or has participated in evangelistic groups as lay people (Gideons International, Navigators, etc.)? My question is an informal poll. I was thinking of posting this as a poll, but I wanted to allow for flexibility in one's answers. Also, if you can please answer what the office of Doctor is I would greatly appreciate it!

Grace to you,
Alex

 

[Taylor]

It depends on the denomination in which one is a member, I suppose. Speaking for the OPC, we have an office of evangelist, to which a man is ordained to do geographically broad ministerial work outside the context of a pastor who on the contrary “stays put,” shepherding one congregation in one place. It may not necessitate travel, though, as my friend Camden Bucey of Reformed Forum was just called to the office of evangelist by his session to continue in a more involved way the work and ministry of Reformed Forum.

I’m new to the OPC, though. Perhaps Dr. @Alan D. Strange could explain this office in the OPC better.

 

[TylerRay]

Dear Believer in Christ:

When I applied to post here on PuritanBoard earlier this year, I was asked if I held any office in the Reformed Church that I attend here in Yuba City, CA. The choices were:

Pastor/Teaching Elder
Ruling Elder
Deacon
Doctor (don't know what this is referring to)
Evangelist
Pastoral Intern

I chose none because I had just become a formal member of the First Reformed Church here in my town (member of the RCUS.org). Who on this board considers themselves an evangelist or has participated in evangelistic groups as lay people (Gideons International, Navigators, etc.)? My question is an informal poll. I was thinking of posting this as a poll, but I wanted to allow for flexibility in one's answers. Also, if you can please answer what the office of Doctor is I would greatly appreciate it!

Grace to you,
Alex

In Reformed/Presbyterian polity, the office of an evangelist usually describes a minister engaged in something like missionary work or church planting.

 

[Jack K]

I think the application meant to ask if you were ordained as an evangelist, which is an official office in some Reformed denominations. That's different from participating as a layman in evangelistic efforts.

Doctor can also be a church office in some places, usually one designating a scholar or a teacher, as in a seminary professor.

In many denominations, both those working as evangelists and those working as teachers are simply ordained to the same office as a pastor/minister/teaching elder. But since, in both cases, the work is fairly different from the work of a typical pastor, some denominations recognize it as a separate office.

 

[Edward]

PCA Book of Church Order

8-6. When a teaching elder is appointed to the work of an evangelist in foreign countries or where there are no other PCA churches within a reasonable distance, he is commissioned for a renewable term of twelve months to preach the Word, to administer the Sacraments, to receive and dismiss members of mission churches, and to train potential officers. By separate actions the Presbytery may in extraordinary situations commission him to examine, ordain and install ruling elders and deacons and organize churches.

 

[Jake]

Looking at the RCUS Constitution, I'm guessing the correspondence is roughly this:

Pastor/Teaching Elder -- Minister of the Word
Ruling Elder -- Elder
Deacon -- Deacon
Doctor -- Teacher of Theology
Evangelist -- I don't see this role in the RCUS.
Pastoral Intern -- Student for the Ministry/Licentiate

http://www.rcus.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/constitution-2017.pdf Section 3, Offices

 

[AlexanderPetzinger]

I looked over the RCUS Constitution several times. The word "evangelist" doesn't exist in the entire document. I have often pondered the fact that too many in the Reformed Church have historically been weak in evangelism. My own pastor once related a meeting he had with a fellow pastor who claimed he could recognize if an individual was one of the elect by just looking into their eyes. Can you think of the implications of this heresy?! Perhaps this "pastor" withholds sound council to those who earnestly seek help (but he refuses to offer any in good faith based upon his presumptuousness). Can you say "hyper-calvinism"?