March 27, 2008 – Miami, Florida…[Libna Stevens/IAD]
Inter-America's Pentecost and More territory-wide evangelistic initiative rippled across Seventh-day Adventist churches, tents and groups, bringing waves of new believers into the church on Saturday, Mar. 15. Almost 50,000 joined the church in Inter-America during the widely celebrated satellite event hosted live from Kingston, Jamaica, a record number for one day. A similar event by the same name held last year saw the baptism of nearly 49,000 thousand souls.
The outcome of the evangelistic program is not surprising to church leaders, who credit the decades long unity among pastor and lay people for the success of the initiative.
“I have been around our vast territory and have witnessed that the mobilization among administrators, leaders and the membership was quite responsive,” says Pastor Balvin Braham, Ministerial Association associate director in charge of evangelism, and organizer of the initiative.
“The key to successful evangelism in the Inter-American Division is found in the empowering leadership, the involvement of pastors and the involvement of the laity,” emphasizes Braham. “It's this collaboration that has proven to be a formula for success in soul-winning.”
Although the number of baptisms have increased since the Pentecost and More initiative was created, soul-winning is actually becoming difficult in the territory, says Braham.
“Opening the eyes of people to the truth is not that easy nowadays,” he says. “But we have sought to keep a momentum with evangelistic programs created, and Pentecost and More has helped increase that momentum.”
Church leaders hope that momentum will last as they begin planning their evangelism strategy for the next two years.
Next year's Pentecost and More initiative will focus on encouraging every church member regardless of age to get involved and share the gospel with at least one person, says Braham.
The theme for 2009's Pentecost and More will be “It's My Time.”
For more information on Inter-America's 2009 Pentecost and More initiative, go to https://recursing-golick.147-182-135-0.plesk.page/users/index.php?type=resource&id=406&language=en
