From Noah, to Jesus, to Peter, to Charles
Wesley, evangelists have shared the Word in the open air, before thousands.
Until nearly the 20th century, these were the largest public evangelism events
because they were automatically limited to the reach of an unaided human voice.
In the 19th century, during the time the
Seventh-day Adventist church was being organized, churches were perfecting the
system of predetermined series of evangelistic “events.” A gifted writer wrote
a series of sermons on a selected list of Bible topics or doctrines. A
charismatic speaker, probably the same person, preached these sermons, perhaps
aided by charts and illustrations. This system was enormously successful in a
time when Chautauqua’s and open-air concerts and other such events were the
only place to go other than home. They only got bigger when voice amplification
systems were invented.
By the second half of the 20th century, these
events were much less successful, at least in the developed western world.
People had too much to do already, too many places to go. Churches looked around
at the culture in which they worked, and came up with satellite-aided
evangelistic series. These, too, were very successful, though possibly more so
in less developed countries. As the Information Age continued, Internet and
other online resources proliferated.
Of course, in a very real way, local churches
are “doing evangelism” each week, and they may also create local revivals,
often a week long, for their region. Or they may do seminars relating to health
or family issues. If they first determine what their local neighborhood feels
its needs and interests to be, they will be more successful. They may also have
websites, e-newsletters, or Bible correspondence courses.
So today, there are as many large or small, organized,
public methods of evangelism as imaginative people can come up with. There are
also numberless ways to become involved with these. One can go from praying for
them to donating money or passing out flyers, (and praying for them); from
inviting friends or ushering at meetings to helping with the presentation by
giving the prayer, singing or playing special music, (and praying for them);
from being the speaker, presenting material from a preformatted seminar or
series to going to seminary and training to become a public evangelist. And
praying!
But what is it that makes these group efforts
succeed? (Besides and along with prayer?) First of all, we have to define “succeed.”
The seminar or conference is a very effective way to disseminate information.
You can learn about the latest dentistry techniques or computer programming
that way. You can learn about advertising or politics. You can learn all kinds
of things about the Bible and even about God that way. You can fill out the blanks
in prewritten lessons and get them all “right.” Do these events succeed at
actually drawing people to God, making them want to get to know Jesus, follow Him,
become like Him, spread the good news about Him? When they do, it’s because of
another factor—the personal factor. Why did John and Jane Doe attend this
seminar to begin with? Their friend asked them, went with them, encouraged
them. Their friend was already their friend.
It’s certainly possible for a person to tune in
to a television presentation or satellite series, listen all alone at home, get
out her Bible to check what the speaker is saying, order the lessons if any, do
them, and choose to become a Christian. It happens. The Holy Spirit works
everywhere, all the time. But even this person is going to have to have friends
now. She’s going to have to find a church or group to join who will help her
along the way, because God created us in community and it will be a rare person
who enters heaven without it, if such a thing is possible at all.
So we have a thing we’ve come to call “friendship
evangelism,” a ministry that is entirely informal, unstructured and occurs when
we least expect it.
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