October 4, 2005 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States …. [ANN Staff]
Hundreds of people come in contact with God each day without first stepping inside of a church. They hear about Him from their neighbors, from satellite broadcasts, from a young person leading a series of talks, and increasingly through the Internet.
Participants at the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Council on Evangelism and Witness (CEW) shared that these innovative types of outreach are contributing to the exponential growth of the church globally. The group, which met at a biannual meeting in Silver Spring, Maryland, Oct. 2, is designed to “function as a think tank and a stimulant to ideas and actions that can find a place in the global life of the church,” said Pastor Lowell Cooper, chairman of the group and a general vice president of the world church.
The CEW was established five years ago and aims “to keep the church conscious that the Great Commission is its primary purpose,” Cooper added, referring to Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:19 where He commands His followers to “Go and make disciples of all nations.”
Council participants were briefed on “Tell the World: A Vision for 2005-2010.” First introduced at the church’s General Conference Session, its quinquennial world business meeting, in St. Louis, Missouri in July, “Tell the World” will be unfolded and discussed during the first business meeting of the upcoming Annual Council of the church’s executive committee.
“‘Tell the World’ is a spirit-filled church committed to Christ and His mission to reach every person of the world,” explained Mark Finley, a vice president for global evangelism for the Adventist world church. “Through God’s grace we can do it. Not in our strength, however, but His.”
Finley added, as leaders of the church “we envision that ‘Tell the World’ is not only telling with our lips, but telling with our lives.”
Effective use of media, especially the Internet, in outreach is among the current initiatives of the Council. John Banks, associate communication director of the Adventist Church, who coordinated the recent Global Internet Evangelism Network’s forum in Bangkok, Thailand, reported a mushrooming response to the initiative around the world. “Several of our regions are establishing activities to reach the Internet communities for God,” Banks reported.
“The manual for the use of the Internet in the church is sitting in the pew next to you, and he is 12 years old. What he needs is the content. And the church is in the business of providing it,” said Rajmund Dabrowski, world church communication director.
Attendees at the recent meeting heard reports on a range of church activities designed to advance evangelism as well as involve lay members in outreach. The group also voted to allocate its US$500,000 grant from the world church to a variety of outreaches: 60 percent each year, or US$300,000, will go to church regions for creative and innovative public evangelism efforts; 20 percent, US$100,000, will go for youth evangelism activities, such as “The Elijah Project,” and the last 20 percent was voted to fund public events by the Center for World Evangelism. Church regions will be able to apply for the grant money to be used in 2006, said Finley.
Public evangelism events conducted by young people within the church are expanding rapidly, Pastor Baraka Muganda, world church youth director, reported in a presentation at the event. In South America, more than 50,000 baptisms resulted from such campaigns, he said, while 14,000 baptisms were reported from the church’s Southern Africa/Indian Ocean region.
Pastor Luka Daniel, president of the Adventist Church in West Africa, said that more than 900 people had been baptized through similar youth outreaches, many in an area “not known for evangelism,” he added.
Muganda said these baptisms are only a part of larger results that flow from youth involvement in outreach.
“When young people get involved in evangelism,” Muganda said, “they not only touch other lives, but they, themselves, are touched.”
Copyright © 2005 by Adventist News Network. web site: news.adventist.org
