Last Sabbath we had a good crowd as Western Ontario pastors came together for an Evangelism Rally. 25 individuals signed commitment cards and promised to bring 74 friends to meetings. $1760 pledged for the future Evangelistic meetings in 2009. This is just a beginning. Similar rallies will be held in every church in the district. More rallies will take place here in London as we prepare for the total church involvement in Evangelism by January 2009.
As I looked through the Ontario Conference News release Wednesday afternoon I was rejoicing to see similar approach being employed also in Toronto, where 100 people were baptised last Sabbath on the closing day of two evangelistic meetings. 60 were baptised in the portable pool set up at the International Centre, in Mississauga. The other 40 were baptised at Kingsview Village Adventist Church, in Etobicoke. The baptism at the International Centre brought the total baptised during the September 6-27 Life of Victory evangelistic series to 136 persons. The series was the joint effort of 14 churches in the West Toronto. Evangelist Omar Palmer, the assistant pastor at Apple Creek Adventist Church led the meeting. He will be coming here to London in November for a rally. Kingsview Village Church left it’s own facility vacant participating in the public evangelism, meanwhile letting two Spanish churches, Maranatha and Bet-El do their own outreach there.
Conference Evangelism and Church Growth coordinator, Dr. Errol Lawrence commented “We have seen that traditional evangelism still works, but we should also consider supplementing it with alternative methods in order to more effectively reach the millennial generation. Reaching through friendship to neighbours, family and friends. "
Last Sabbath I shared Jesus’ way of doing evangelism. Luke 10:1 records following method: “The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.” Jesus, the best Evangelist ever, the original Evangelist, is doing something that every church should pay attention to: calls more people to the team, in addition to those already serving and working with him, and he sends them in pairs ahead of himself, into places where He Himself was about to go.
The reason Evangelism did not work in past decade – because no pre-work of “going before” was ever done. The pre-work of visiting with people, going door-to-door, preparing friends and neighbours for the event, has to begin at least 3 months before the Meeting. The whole process of developing friends, and serving needs of people has to be a continuous and consistent effort.
As we work toward telling London that Jesus is coming soon, let’s start visiting and preparing people within our sphere of influence.
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