Just bring up the topic of public evangelism in a church board or business meeting sometime, and you might generate an interesting and passionate discussion. On one hand, there will be people who are extremely supportive of public evangelism and believe that every church should conduct 1 or 2 meetings every year. They can trace their baptism and conversion experience to a past prophecy seminar that completely changed their lives. And as a result, they are under the conviction that there are many people just like themselves out there who need to be reached and are waiting for a revelation of truth.
However, on the other hand, there is a growing number of people within the church who take the opposite stand. (Actually, I don’t know if it’s growing, but sometimes it seems like it). They believe public evangelistic meetings and prophecy seminars are an antiquated form of outreach that is no longer relevant in our modern world. It had is hay-day 40-50 years ago, but the world is different now and it is not effective anymore. The results are not the same as in years past. They believe that public evangelism should be placed in a casket and buried in the ground like a corpse in a funeral procession.
So here’s the question. Which side of the fence are you on? Are you for or against public evangelistic meetings and prophecy seminars? Do you think it is still relevant and effective? Or do you think it is no longer viable and the church should stop conducting them?
Over the next few weeks, let’s use this blog as an avenue to discuss the issues. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why people think that public evangelism isn’t important anymore. Please take this as an opportunity to express your opinion no matter what side of fence you are on.
As we pursue this subject it won’t be hard to figure out which side of the fence I’m on. After all, I am an evangelist.
Next week, we will begin looking at reason # 1. Sign up for the blog and join the discussion.
