Hope Now Series Draws People through Digital and Traditional Outreach

General Conference president Ted N. C. Wilson leads meetings in San Francisco.

October 9, 2024 | California, United States | Brennan Hallock for Central California Conference

The Hope Now series is having an ongoing positive impact on the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Central California Conference cities and communities, and San Francisco is one of those. The part of the evangelistic series held in San Francisco, led by General Conference president Ted Wilson, took place September 6-14.

Local churches prepared for the Hope Now series through multiple methods of outreach to their community. But the groundwork for this program was conducted for a much longer time.

An evangelistic series taking place at the San Francisco Central Seventh-day Adventist Church is not unique, but it was unique to have Ted Wilson as the speaker. The church hosts one to two evangelistic series yearly, which connects the church with the community and builds ongoing relationships.

Wilson focused on Revelation and the hope this book of the Bible offers to Christians during his week-long series. He delved into the subjects of the Second Coming, the state of the dead, the Sabbath, and more. On the final Saturday (Sabbath) meeting, about 460 people attended the event and another approximately 3,000 watched online, where it was streamed over five platforms.

The Hope Now series in San Francisco was promoted using several methods, including traditional outreach practices such as door-to-door (done by Streams of Light International) and word-of-mouth invites as well as online outreach such as digital marketing through Facebook and other outlets. The Meta ads manager promotes across various platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

“We advertised on Meta … and also passed out brochures and flyers, and then invited our friends,” Mark Ferrell, pastor of the San Francisco Central church, explained.

Pairing digital evangelism with more traditional evangelism can often have the most positive outcome. Each method reaches a different community and connects with different types of people in different ways. This makes it more likely to impact a broader spectrum of people with the invitation to hear about God and the church.

Many people came to the meetings as a result of the outreach — both the digital and the traditional. Ten people were baptized during the meetings, and many more are currently participating in Bible studies preparing for baptism. Four people who came as a direct result of the Meta digital outreach were baptized during the meetings and gave their lives to God, and several others from the digital outreach are in Bible studies.

San Francisco has some of the many challenges of bigger cities, such as the difficulty to find parking to accommodate a large crowd of people, and many people’s indifference to a traditional Christian message. This event reiterated the fact that evangelism still works today, however, and showed the power of outreach, even in a community like San Francisco.

“There were a lot of people who came and participated and were really excited. There was a lot of energy,” Ferrell said.

The San Francisco church and the other churches surrounding it were instrumental in making sure this event was successful. Members volunteered to help by preparing meals for the attendees, singing in choirs, setting up and taking down equipment, helping with transportation, and much more.

“When it came to preparation during the time of the evangelistic meeting, everybody was busy. More than half of the members of the church really worked hard and involved themselves,” Roldan Abello, who is also a pastor at the San Francisco Central church, said.

This event continues to have an ongoing positive impact on both the community and the church. The fact that Ted Wilson was able to speak at the San Francisco Central church was a highlight for many members. “We really felt humbled to have him accept and come speak at our church,” Ferrell said.

The congregation will also continue working with the interest that this event created. Many people signed up for Bible studies through the traditional and digital outreach, as well as through the evangelistic series. “We’re going to continue working with the people that came to the meeting, and there is a lot of Bible study interest that the Streams of Light missionaries received,” Ferrell said.

Abello added that if another church is interested in reaching out to its community, they should use all methods of outreach that are available. “The opportunity this event gave was to use every possible thing in preparation,” he explained. This means pairing traditional evangelism with digital evangelism through platforms such as Facebook and others.

The original version of this story was posted by the Central California Conference.