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Their goal: to share the gospel 52 times a year

By Cesar Parra

CALGARY—“We are activators of prayer, evangelism and discipleship in Canada and the world by aiming to proclaim the gospel 52 times a year.” This is the evangelistic vision of Action 52.

The apostles had this vision 2000 years ago. Acts 5:42 gives us the example: “Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”

We complied with that vision on January 23 when Action 52 was initiated at our church, Cambrian Heights Baptist in Calgary. As of March 5, twenty-five eager church members stepped up to the calling and are attending our Wednesday evening class to receive training on how to live out personal evangelism and how to disciple those who are converted.

Jesus has begun to work in the hearts of our church members to develop a passion for evangelism. It was a blessing to witness that even while I was training the people, the gospel was being proclaimed on a weekly basis. Every Wednesday participants share testimonies of witnessing experiences.

Buzz Lorimer was one of those who began to share the gospel to his friends; he used skiing to build relationships and God gave him the opportunity to tell people about Jesus.

The testimonies are many, the blessings are overwhelming, and the immense joy that I feel to see these brothers and sisters live out evangelism is unexplainable. Sharing this experience takes me back to 1995 when three youths came knocking on my door to tell me about the greatest message I had ever heard.

A week later Pastor Francisco Aular said to me, “I can reach some of your friends and family but you can reach them all, I will teach you.” My passion for evangelism began that day.

This Sunday we had our first group of Evangelism Activators who were charged to go and make disciples of all nations. They received an evangelism kit that contains three ways to tell people about Jesus, a certificate as a reminder of their calling and a ziplock bag containing 52 seeds. These seeds are to be a reminder that we will pray every week for God to give us an opportunity to proclaim the gospel; each time this happens we will throw out a seed.

Next year on March 2 we will see how many seeds we have left, but it does not matter; what matters is that we have made a commitment to comply with the Great Commission of Jesus Christ by aiming to share the gospel for 52 weeks.

My dream is that one day we will all go out as a nation to reach the lost together for 52 weeks; if we all work at it, God will do His part. The numbers will be greater than we can imagine.

If each of us makes at least one disciple by next year, we would have 25 new people active in our church. If the whole church was active in Action 52 by May, there could be 100 new believers in our church by next year. Our pastor, Dwayne Bartley, can reach many by himself but as a church we can reach hundreds!

If your church would like to participate in Action 52, the training is ready. It would be an honour to help you get started. Join us and, “make evangelism a way of life.”