Sept 3, 2026 Show with Heath Shaner on “Evangelism & Its Vital Connection to the Local Church: A Warning to & Against Rogue, Unchurched Evangelists”

Evangelism and Its Vital Connection to the Local Church

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this third day of September 2026.

Before I introduce to you my first-time guest and his topic of the day, I have an exciting announcement to make, and I hope that you mark this on your calendar tomorrow—that's Friday, September 4th—on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I am going to have as my guests Virgil Walker, who served as the vice president of ministry relations at G3 Ministries. He is going to be on the program with another very dear friend of mine, Justin Peters of Justin Peters Ministries, and they're both going to be addressing the fall of G3 Ministries and how the largest Reformed Baptist conference ministry in the United States collapsed, and valuable lessons we can learn from the demise of this very once-important ministry.

So I hope that you mark that on your calendar to tune in tomorrow. As always, 4 to 6 p .m. Eastern Time here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to hear Virgil Walker and Justin Peters on the demise of G3 Ministries.

Heath Shaner and the Ministry Context for Evangelism

But today I'm excited to have a first-time guest on the program. I had the privilege of meeting this young brother at one of my Iron Sharpens Iron Radio pastors' luncheons. He is Heath Shaner, director of evangelism ministries at Cornerstone Bible Church in Dover, Pennsylvania, and team member of Hearts for the Lost Ministries alongside my other dear friend Brian Nind.

And today, Heath is going to be addressing evangelism and its vital connection to the local church, a warning to and against rogue, unchurched evangelists. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Heath Shaner.

Thank you, Mr. Rorenz, and thanks for having me on and just for your faithfulness throughout the years on air.

Well, thank you. Well, before we have you do something that we always have first-time guests do, which is give a summary of your salvation testimony, tell our listeners something about Cornerstone Bible Church in Dover, Pennsylvania.

Yeah, we are a Bible-expositing, Bible-preaching church here just northwest of York, Pennsylvania. I have the privilege to sit under our senior pastor, Matthew Sandorfe, who has been here for 10 years faithfully expositing God's Word.

So if you're looking for a Reformed Bible-believing church in the York County area, we'd love to have you any Sunday at 10 o 'clock in the morning.

Great. Well, the website is cbcdoverpa .org. Cbcdoverpa .org, and that's for Cornerstone Bible Church in Dover, Pennsylvania. Now tell us something about Hearts for the Lost Ministries.

Yeah, the goal of Hearts for the Lost Ministries is essentially to equip Christians around the world to share their faith where God has placed them. And originally, it started off as a conference ministry, in which it still is, where we will go to any church in the country for free and share biblical evangelism.

But in the last few years, we've shifted to an even greater focus on how to specifically train elders and pastors for the purpose of building ministry teams that can then go out and share their faith in the community that God sovereignly places them.

Great. And the website for Hearts for the Lost Ministries is heartsforthelost .com, heartsforthelost .com. Well, as I already hinted, whenever we have a first-time guest on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which you were raised, if any, and the kinds of providential circumstances our sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you.

So let's hear your story.

A False Profession, Conversion, and the Gospel

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Arnson. So I grew up in central Indiana, and I always believed fundamentally that God had existed as Romans chapter 1 tells of all of humanity. And yet, I was not raised in a church context where I was hearing the gospel faithfully preached each week.

It wasn't until I was around the age of 12 that I had a death in the family, and I started to really consider what does it mean if God does exist, where would I spend eternity? That was a question that was always on my mind.

And I started attending a fairly large church in the central Indiana area that was not focused on the gospel. It would have been kind of a byproduct of the emergent church movement and was very focused on, truthfully, all the wrong things.

And I professed faith in Christ. I prayed the sinner's prayer as I was led by one of the leaders at that church. And yet, I was a false convert. My life did not demonstrate the fruit of saving faith. And fundamentally, I believed that in my own goodness, I could save myself.

I believed, well, I'm not as bad as so-and-so. I'm not as bad as the person on the news or someone I go to school with. But in reality, I was still dead in my sin. Upon entering high school, I struggled with assurance as I read the Bible and yet continued to attend this church because ultimately, I was placing my faith in myself and not in Christ.

And in high school, in God's providence, I met a gentleman. His name is Christopher, and he was a Bible-believing Christian and attended a Bible-preaching church in our area, Cornerstone Bible Church in Westfield, Indiana, where our friend and brother Brian Nind is an elder.

And he led me to that church out of this mega-church, seeker-sensitive church. And after about two to three years of attending there faithfully, I heard the gospel truly. And it pierced my heart. It wasn't just something I heard in word, but it was something that transformed my heart.

And my youth pastor at the time was preaching on 2 Corinthians 5 .20 and the call to be reconciled to God on Christ's behalf, and that Jesus did not call the righteous, those who think they're good, but sinners to repentance, and that he is the one who loved himself and gave himself for his people.

Amen. Amen. So, how did you come to discover Hearts for the Lost?

Yeah, great question. So, after becoming a Christian, God placed me around godly men within Cornerstone. And Brian Nind was actually one of those men. And we met at a Wednesday theology group back at the church.

We would go through a systematic theology each year. And Brian had an interest in apologetics, and I had just become reformed in my soteriology and was listening to a lot of James White, R .C. Sproul, and Dr. John MacArthur.

And so, through our interest in reformed theology and evangelism, Brian and I connected, and he started discipling me. We'd actually meet—we met every Thursday for two years in Panera, and he graciously walked me through the book of Titus, and he's an example to me of what it looks like to be a godly man.

And through that, we had many opportunities to go share our faith in the community with various groups—Hebrew Israelites, Roman Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Latter-day Saints, etc.

Well, praise God. And I thank God truly from the depths of my heart for Hearts for the Lost Ministries. A number of months ago, I was beginning to disobey Christ by being anxious for the horrible financial situation I found myself in, and without provocation from me, I got a call from the aforementioned Brian Nine, and he reminded me that we met at a G3 conference a number of years ago, and I interviewed him there on the site of G3, and he said that he wanted to sponsor Iron Trip and Zion Radio for a year, which he has done.

And that was certainly a gift-wrapped present from God. It was just—the timing couldn't have been better. God's timing is always perfect. And that sponsorship rescued me out of a very serious, scary financial pit that I will never be able to thank Brian and Hearts for the Lost Ministries enough for that gracious gift and sponsorship, and I hope that we have a relationship in the labor field of Christ for many years to come.

The Rise of Rogue, Unchurched Evangelists

Well, I think you've chosen a very excellent and controversial theme today, evangelism and its vital connection to the local church, a warning to and against rogue, unchurched evangelists, and these folks abound, perhaps even more so, or at least they've revealed themselves in greater numbers, with the dawn of the Internet and the podcast explosion especially, which had occurred primarily during the COVID crisis, where a lot of people were locked in their homes and began to explore hosting their own podcasts, and now, for better or for worse, because there are a number of excellent podcasts out there that the Lord providentially has given birth to because of that COVID crisis, but there are numerous lone wolves, people who have no accountability to any body of elders at any local church who are setting themselves up as teachers and preachers and evangelists, and this is something that you obviously, from our theme, you oppose very greatly.

Why don't you explain that a little bit?

Yeah, so I was blessed in God's providence to grow up around godly men who were either training to be elders or were elders themselves, who placed a great emphasis on the authority of God's word when it comes to our ecclesiology and how we view the local church, and specifically in evangelism, this was played out as our church continued to grow through COVID, and we had an evangelism team that was started, a group of men that would hold one another accountable through prayer and accountability, and there was never a time where we would go out solely by ourselves, yet we went out as a group and as a team, and Mr. Orenson, the reason this is such on my heart is because I'm part of Gen Z, and especially as you mentioned during that COVID crisis, we saw the rise of many podcasters and YouTube teachers, even those that are my age and younger, and in that, most of these men believe that church is just something that we can hold to one day and we can change the next, and there's no need for accountability, church membership, church government is not something that's usually thought of, and specifically in evangelism, I think this is played out where men spend so much time focusing solely on doing evangelism and countering the cult, which I'm totally for, that they negate the other means of the Christian life in which we are called to serve and follow the commands of Scripture.

Amen, and I'm assuming that one of the key verses in the Scriptures that you are grounding your commitment to this concept of all evangelists having a connection to a biblically sound local church, I'm assuming that one of these verses is Hebrews 13, 17, which says, Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls, as those who will give an account, so that they may do this with joy, not groaning, for this would be unhelpful for you.

And although we can learn from gifted teachers that are not our own elders, there are many authors that I have learned greatly by their words, and there are radio and television evangelists who are sound in the sea of heresy, and there are conferences I've attended and learned greatly from men who don't know me at all.

But we have to submit ourselves to men who have been appointed to God to watch over our souls, and these men who we don't know, who we learn from, they are not going to give an account for having oversight over us, and therefore it is dangerous to seek guidance and wisdom from people that refuse to submit to this very clear biblical command, is it not, that we have to obey our leaders and submit to them?

I completely agree. Another passage that I thought of while you were speaking was Acts 14 .33, when he writes that when they had appointed elders for them in every church, the prayer and fasting they committed themselves to the Lord in whom they believed.

So even in the early church, there's this expectation of the role of elders within the local church, and then the outflow of that, as you mentioned in Hebrews 13, being that the church, and specifically, and more importantly, even those that claim to be leaders and teachers and evangelists in the church, are submitting to elders in that their gifts are being monitored and watched by the elders.

I think what you find a lot in evangelism, unfortunately, are guys that don't like the local church, they've gotten ran out of local churches, and they seek to set up ministries for themselves where they don't have an authority over them that, as you said, will keep watch over their souls.

Evangelism Under the Authority of Elders

Amen. And so tell us exactly how you function as director of evangelism ministries at Cornerstone Bible Church in Dover, Pennsylvania, because that may lead us to discover a lot of key areas that we are going to be grappling with today.

So I had the privilege in God's providence to connect with the elders out here, and they were looking for someone to fulfill a role where they could oversee both the evangelism ministry as well as the student ministry, and the teaching and preaching ministry kind of as the underbelly of that.

If I'm being straightforward, it's essentially a pastoral training role where I work full time at the church under the authority of the elders and have the privilege to grow in teaching and preaching.

I'm teaching through the book of Hebrews every so often on Sunday mornings, and then I teach the Sunday school as well on the attributes of God, along with the Wednesday nights and the evangelism outreaches.

But the importance of it and the emphasis in that is that I'm able to do evangelism specifically, even with Hearts for the Lost, do evangelism under the authority of the godly men here. And so even too, when we go out and witness, when we're sharing our faith, we are pointing people not only to Christ and repent and believe in the gospel, but also to a local church where if they do, in God's providence, place their faith in Christ, they have a place where they're able to grow and to feed upon the Word of God.

Yeah, that key element that you just mentioned is one of the tragedies of the Billy Graham crusades. They forbid their counselors, as they called them—counselors were volunteers who waited up front by the—for lack of a better term—stage for people to—or for people who, I should say, were coming forward at the invitation of Billy Graham to pray with them and have them confess their sin and their need for a Savior.

And these people were forbid to recommend churches to any of these people that came forward. And even more disturbing, they were told to send them back to the churches and even non-Christian religions from which they came, which is pure insanity.

I mean, there may be a very good reason why a person is coming forward at such a crusade to receive salvation. It may have been because the true gospel was never declared at the places where they were from.

So, that was one of the major reasons. There were others—Billy Graham's rampant ecumenism with unbelievers and other things. But one of the main reasons that my church, where I was a member at the time when the Billy Graham crusade was in the New York area—when I lived in New York, Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick was my church—we never supported the Billy Graham crusades, never promoted them, never encouraged people to go to them, and even warned about them because of that very reason.

But that is something that is very absent, glaringly absent, for much of the evangelism of the 21st century, is it not?

Yeah, and you even mentioned earlier the online sphere of podcasting and YouTube, and I think it's important as well in our apologetics. And we've seen over—and Dr. James White has spoken on this before, too—but we've seen this shift where there was this trend in the 2010s where apologetics was just, oh, you can be a Christian if you just believe in Jesus, where we don't find justification, where we just equate the gospel to defending the resurrection and the existence of God.

Whereas the apostles and Jesus and the writers of the New Testament were very clear that our apologetics and our evangelism are rooted in the biblical gospel, and so we must remind and consider the claims of Christ that were justified solely by the doing and dying of Christ, Him taking our filthy garments, as Isaiah describes, and clothing us with the garments of salvation, as we see in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve sinned against God.

And God provides them the garments of the animal skin, so He provides all who trust in Him the garment of salvation, which is the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. And when we fail to see that in our evangelism and our apologetics and we dumb it down and become ecumenist in our evangelism, we are doing a disservice not only to the church, but also against the authority of God's Word.

Amen. Since you mentioned my longtime friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, it reminded me of when he told me that over the decades when they have been involved—when I say they, I mean Alpha and Omega Ministries—has been involved in outdoor evangelism, especially toward the Mormons.

They would gather at major Mormon events, both in Arizona and in Salt Lake City, Utah. And they were often approached by individuals who would say to James, I love your ministry, love your books, love hearing you preach, etc.

Can I assist you in passing out tracts? And James said he would always immediately ask the person, to what church do you belong? And very often these individuals would say, oh, I'm not a member of any church.

And James would say, well, I'm sorry, but I do not join arms with individuals who are not a member of a biblically faithful local church, even just to do something as simple as passing out tracts. So if you get grounded in a biblically faithful local church, as the Scriptures command that you do, feel free to approach me next time you're in an area where we're doing evangelistic efforts and I will welcome you with open arms to assist us.

But many people would not do that. They wouldn't even be really concerned about the church where the person might be a member or if they were a member at all of a church.

Yeah, I think that's a great point, even too, in that there's, I think of the call of Titus where even in our evangelism, whether it be our evangelism, the preaching of God's Word, there's that element of discipleship when going out and sharing our faith.

And if those who we are discipling or being discipled by or desire to be discipled by are not members of a local church, how can they be those that are sound in faith, lovest at fastness, if they aren't heeding the command of God's Word to gather with the brethren?

Amen. And we are going to be going into our first commercial break right now. If you have a question of your own, please submit it to chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-S-E-N at gmail .com.

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We'll be right back after these messages.

I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune God.

We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ. In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every Sunday.

We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at trbccarlisle .org. That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

Hello, this is Brian Nye, president of Hearts for the Lost Ministry. Our sole mission is to serve the local church and work directly with and alongside pastors and elders with their efforts to equip, excite, and educate their flock in biblical evangelism.

We also provide practical experience opportunities in sharing the gospel directly within your immediate community. We accomplish this mission with training and Christ-centered outreach events designed to equip the church and proclaim the good news of the gospel.

Our services are always 100 free. If you're looking to equip and mobilize your church for faithful gospel witness, please partner with us. Hearts for the Lost Ministry, serving the church, proclaiming the gospel.

Contact us today at heartsforthelost .com. That's heartsforthelost .com. Now have a heart and go share your faith.

James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and the Dividing Line webcast here. Although God has brought me all over the globe for many years to teach, preach, and debate at numerous venues, some of my very fondest memories are from those precious times of fellowship with Pastor Rich Jensen and the brethren at Hope Reform Baptist Church, now located at their new beautiful facilities in Coram, Long Island, New York.

I've had the privilege of opening God's word from their pulpit on many occasions, have led youth retreats for them, and have always been thrilled to see their members filling many seats at my New York debates.

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Defining Evangelism and Its Scope

Go to nasbible .com, that's nasbible .com to place your order. Welcome back, if you just tuned us in. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and my guest today is Heath Shaner, Director of Evangelism Ministries at Cornerstone Bible Church in Dover, Pennsylvania, and team member of Hearts for the Lost Ministries, and we are addressing evangelism and its vital connection to the local church, a warning to and against rogue unchurched evangelists.

And our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least. City and state and country of residence. Before I go to any listener questions, I think it would be wise for you to provide for us a definition of evangelism, because although there is one gospel message and there is only one true God, which has existed in three co-equal, co-eternal persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there are different forms of evangelism.

For instance, there are the kinds of evangelism that are conducted only by pastors and elders, very often from pulpits, or even in open-air evangelism through the approval of the local church. But there is also a very large and true sense where every single Christian, a man, woman, and young person, is commanded to be an evangelist, in that they are to unashamedly declare the good news of the gospel whenever they have the opportunity, to strangers, to acquaintances, to family, friends, and loved ones.

So there are different forms of evangelism. So maybe you want to set some definitions?

I'd say generally that evangelism is fundamentally the proclaiming of the gospel message of Jesus Christ. The pastor is an evangelist on Sunday mornings when he opens up God's Word and proclaims it verse by verse.

The Christian can be an evangelist if they hand out a gospel tract at a restaurant or at a gas station. A student can be an evangelist if they seek to share the hope that they have within them to those on their sports teams.

So from a broad perspective, without going into the specifics of how it can be played out, evangelism is ultimately the proclaiming of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, no matter the form or the method or the scriptural passage that is used.

Evangelism in Small Towns and Large Cities

Okay, we actually have a question from our mutual friend and your colleague at Hearts for the Lost Ministries, Brian Nind, president of Hearts for the Lost. He says, Hello, Brother Chris, looking forward to seeing you at the October 1st luncheon again.

Praise God, I'm so glad to get that confirmation that Brian intends to be there, and I hope you are as well, Keith. He says, here's his question, What are the main differences and challenges of leading evangelism outreach activity in a small town versus a large town?

Yeah, that's a great question. First, I'm also very excited about the luncheon here coming up in October, and Lord willing, I'll be there as well. But when considering the connection between and challenges and differences between large town and small town evangelism, the church I was discipled in and ministered in was in a town that was 20 minutes from Minneapolis.

So we had LDS churches and various different places where each Saturday we could go out and witness and run into all kinds of various groups of people. And on one hand, it was very easy because there was always somebody available to talk to.

Whereas in a smaller environment, you have to be more creative in the means in which you seek to go do street ministry or to do just evangelism in general. That can apply to open air preaching. It can apply to sharing your faith in the park or going to different events in your community.

I think the biggest challenge in doing small town evangelism, truthfully, is just heeding the call of Scripture that God is the one that brings the fruit. I think the temptation is in a bigger city that you can look and rely on numbers or, OK, I talked to this many people today or this person was really interested in sharing or hearing about the gospel.

Whereas I think the command of Scripture is that we're to just go out and be obedient to Christ, regardless if anyone hears, regardless if there's anyone that either comes to know the Lord or even if no one hears.

We're still being faithful to what God commands us to do, which is to go into all nations and proclaim the gospel.

Amen, amen, amen. And the answer that you gave to Brian—and by the way, Brian, I'm looking forward to seeing you October 1st. The answer you gave is very connected to another listener question. We have David in Fort Worth, Texas, and David asks, Do you have any suggestions and counsel to people involved in open-air evangelism not to be overly discouraged when they see what appears to be little fruit from their evangelistic efforts?

So what you just said is a part of that, but if you could respond to David.

Yeah, that's a great question, David, and it's so hard when, whether it be open-air evangelism or just even proclaiming the gospel in general, even with family too, it's so hard when you don't see fruit, when you don't see the evidences of God working in the efforts that you labor faithfully in.

And yet my encouragement is that, especially coming from the Reformed persuasion of salvation, that we are simply called just to be messengers of the gospel. We are just called to share Christ, and we trust God with the fruit.

It's no different than preaching or any other various ministry within the local church. Evangelism is no different. We trust God that if we are just faithful to what His Word says, that He is always going to be receiving glory, regardless of what the results are.

Yes, and being a Reformed Christian, I'm not trying to be sectarian here, but there is so much truth in the fact that the doctrines of sovereign grace remind us that we cannot, in our strength and power and ability, open the eyes of the blind and give new hearts to the lost.

Those are things only God can do, but He does command us to declare the truth of His gospel. And it really reminds me of the parable of the sower. It's also been called the parable of the soils that we see in Matthew 13 and Mark 4 and Luke 8.

And the outcome of the seeds being planted and watered, only God gives the increase. And it is evident that the different results of the seeds being planted and watered—some springing up right away, but then withering and dying and so on—are just so reflective of the mission field.

And when I say mission field, that could be your own neighborhood. We are not to be overwhelmed with depression and beating ourselves up if we're being faithful to declare the truth. We have to realize not everyone is of God's elect, and we are supposed to be declaring the gospel to everyone because we don't know who the elect are.

And as Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, and I may be misremembering exactly how he said it, but it was something to the effect of even if God had painted a yellow stripe on the backs of all of His elect, He would still preach to everyone that did not have a yellow stripe on His back.

And so, only really the doctrines of sovereign grace can give perseverance and encouragement to people in their evangelism. Because if you really think it's up to your abilities, your skill, your articulateness, your vast knowledge of theology, all of those things, if you think that that is really what is going to determine the eternal lives of the hearers of the gospel message, you're going to be disappointed over and over and over again, or you're going to lower the bar about what is actually to be deemed as a genuine conversion, as many multitudes of professing Christians do.

They will claim as a convert someone who merely repeats what you're telling them to say in a prayer, and they will declare that person to have eternal life. So, we have to really have the truth behind us when we are evangelizing and declaring Christ.

And perhaps you even have some anecdotes or some stories of accounts that you have had experienced personally in your evangelistic efforts that you can share with us.

Yeah, I do. But piggybacking off what you said in the parable of the sowers, you see even within the Old Testament, whether it be God speaking to the prophets and the people not listening to the prophets, and they're continually proclaiming God's word.

You see that with Isaiah and Habakkuk and others, but you also even see that in the New Testament too, right? Where the apostles are—fundamentally, they're martyred for their faith at the end of the day.

So, it wasn't even just the people didn't listen to them, the people wanted to kill them, and in most cases did, just that. And so, it comes down to ultimately trusting the Lord. For me personally, there's been—I mean, I could give lots of stories of means in which God's grace has been shown in the lives of others.

I'm a testament to that. I was one that was a false convert, believed that it was by a prayer that I prayed, and yet God was still faithful to bring those around me who at times, I'm sure, were very discouraged.