Some believe that evangelistic sermons are different from the preaching you do at your weekly worship service, because the purpose is different. But evangelist David Klinedinst believes that while the audience may be different, the purpose is the same: to point people to Jesus, connect with the heart, and call each person to take a step forward in faith.
In this webinar, SermonView founder and president Larry Witzel interviews David Klinedinst, the evangelism director for the Chesapeake Conference. As an evangelist with decades of experience as a pastor, personal ministries director, and itinerant evangelist, his unique perspective encourages you to take a step forward in your own evangelistic journey. In this conversation, David talks about how to prepare and deliver evangelistic sermons, how to create an environment conducive to a life-changing experience, and how to inspire your members to participate. He also talks about the importance of a year-long evangelism strategy that will add power to public evangelistic meetings.
Here are excerpts from this conversation:
Larry: David, I want to start by looking at the big picture, and talk a bit about your philosophy of evangelism. What’s the purpose? Why are we doing evangelism?
David: Well, for me, evangelism is not just presenting information or doctrinal information that’s only understood intellectually. The purpose is to speak to the heart and invite people to make decisions, and change, and surrender in their life, to actually choose to follow Jesus. It has to go far beyond just giving intellectual information.
Larry: The focus of the conversation today is on the evangelistic preaching itself. So let’s start with this question. What are the differences between Sabbath morning sermons and evangelistic preaching?
David: For me, there is no difference. Now, someone else may answer that differently. The audience may be different, but for me, whether I’m preaching on a Sabbath morning worship service or in an actual evangelistic series, to me it’s the same. I’m wanting to speak to people’s hearts and appeal to them to make life-changing decisions, whether they are big decisions or little decisions. I’m wanting to go beyond just memorizing texts with intellectual information. Obviously, knowing the right information is good. We need that.
But it’s got to go far beyond that. I want to reach the heart, whether I’m preaching Sabbath morning or Tuesday night in an evangelistic series or doing a devotional at a school.
Larry: So while you’re preaching, then, what are you trying to do with evangelistic sermons?
David: When I stand up to preach, I know what I’ll be asking for. You’re not standing up there to just make sure that a topic is understood. Yes, you want the topic to be understood because people don’t make decisions if things aren’t clear to them. But I don’t want to just have an intellectually understood message. I want to know from the beginning what’s the purpose of this message or this topic, what am I going to be asking them to do throughout this message? What is my appeal at the end? Because if I know that from the beginning, that helps my sermon to flow in the right direction, because I know what my purpose is.
Larry: In the context of business presentations, I heard someone say that people don’t go to conventions because they want information. They’re there because they want change. That’s the fundamental motivation for them taking the effort to be there, not because they want to learn more, but because they want to change something in their life.
David: I believe that’s true, especially when it comes to an evangelistic series. Whether you’re doing something that’s short one, two weeks, or you’re doing a full-message series for four weeks, the majority of people that come are looking for something in their life. They are looking for change. Now, there will always be a handful of people, seminar junkies, who just come for information. And I mean, they’re welcome too. But when someone comes to the doors of an Adventist evangelistic meeting, there’s a reason for that because they could be doing 1,000 other things that night. They’re searching for something that goes beyond just an intellectual understanding.
Larry: So if the goal for evangelistic preaching is to see people making decisions to make a change in some aspect of their life, then how do you structure your evangelistic sermons? What’s the flow for an individual sermon? And what’s the flow for an entire full message series?
David: The structure is usually the same. You begin with a compelling story that gets people’s attention. It tells them why you should listen to this subject, or how is it relevant to you. Use some story, some statistics, something that grabs their attention right away, that tells them, I need to listen to the rest of this.
Then you have the body of the sermon where you’re giving the content, bible verses, et cetera. But in that content, after so many Bible verses, I’m wanting to intersperse that with relevant stories, testimonies, and illustrations that are going to engage the heart. The Bible text will obviously engage the mind, but I can illustrate that text with practical stories that will then engage the heart. Maybe the best way to do that is to share little bits of testimonies from your own life, so that people can relate to you.
And then of course, when you come to the end, you are making a very specific appeal for them to take an action, whatever that action is.
So number one, you have the introduction to get their attention. Number two, you have the content and Bible verses, and you’re interspersing stories, and illustrations in between some of these Bible verses. And number three, you are making an appeal for some type of action.
Larry: In marketing, we talk about having a “call to action.” Every marketing communication piece that goes out is asking the person to do something specific. And the most effective marketing pieces have a very clear call to action, a very clear step that we’re asking people to take. It’s one thing, and it’s really clear. That’s marketing, but are there similarities to the way that you’re asking for decisions in preaching?
David: It’s very similar because if I’m not asking for something, then I’m just giving information. That’s all, I’m just giving a lecture. And even politicians, when they give their spiel about why you should vote for them, at the end they make an appeal for you to take an action. Vote for me. So why would I not do that in evangelistic sermons or even Sabbath morning sermons? Otherwise, I’m given good information, but I’m not asking them to do anything with it, and I’m not engaging the heart.
Larry: Okay, then, what are some specific tips you have for delivering an evangelistic sermon?
David: Engaging your audience is probably the biggest thing. For me, I don’t like it when an audience is really quiet. Sometimes that might be because the subject is a difficult one that they’re processing, so quietness doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad. But I like to engage the audience. They don’t need to be quiet for 45 minutes.
So you can engage them in so many ways by throwing out questions and queueing for a response. Different church cultures have different ways of doing this. “Can you say Amen?”, or, “Can I get a witness here?” “Does anybody here understand what I’m talking about?” Or, “Raise your hand if this makes sense.” Things like that. It could be as simple as asking them to repeat the text. You know, “Why don’t we turn our Bibles to Matthew, chapter 23 and verse five. Now, friends, what book did I say? What chapter?” And they’re responding back. Even when you’re reading the verse, you can leave out a word and let them fill in the blank. Like John 3:16: “For God so what? What is it?” And then they’ll repeat it. “For God so loved.”
Little things like that, which may seem insignificant, keeps an audience engaged for a longer period of time.
Larry: Last month, we did a webinar talking about cognitive dissonance in proclamational evangelism. One of the ways to help overcome cognitive dissonance when somebody’s struggling with an idea is this idea of social support. And I think that is one of the most powerful aspects of evangelistic meetings is the social experience, where people are coming together. You’re interacting with them beforehand, you’re interacting with them after. And even during the sermon, when you’re asking for a response: “How many of you think this?” And when people raise their hands, the guests are seeing, oh, there’s a lot of social support for this.
This perceived social support gives weight to what it is that you’re saying, which helps them get them closer to that tipping point to overcome the cognitive dissonance. So I like what you’re saying when you’re engaging with people. When somebody sees that other people are engaged with it, that gives more weight to the message that you’re actually preaching.
David: Then it starts to become more than simply a monologue. When people respond or engage, you’re starting to have a little bit of dialogue.
You touched on something really important, yet often the most neglected part of public evangelism. That is the relational aspect. Sometimes we to do evangelism from a distance and preach it from the pulpit. But at some point, I have to come down from that pulpit, so to speak, and connect with people. When I’m engaging responses, sharing bits and pieces of my own experience, I am connecting with people and I am developing trust. That’s going to open the door for them to feel comfortable to talk with me before the meetings when they come early or stay afterwards. It opens the door for personal visitation.
Here’s the thing you will never win someone to Jesus who does not trust you first. You will never move someone to make a decision or some kind of action in their life if they don’t trust you. And trust is only developed through personal interaction and relationship and through having a personable style when you’re upfront speaking and connecting with people.
Larry: When we’re talking about Adventist evangelism, something that’s key to me is that it’s not just about belief. We’re not done if someone is persuaded of Adventist doctrine. Our job is not done until they’re actually connected with a local church and engaged in the life of that local church.
Church is fundamentally a social experience. Yes, there’s a vertical component. There’s the theology, there’s the relationship with God. But fundamentally, church is about believers coming together, and there’s that horizontal social component. So when you’re talking about the relationship, it’s crucial that you have people from the church that are actually there at meetings, getting to know guests, because ultimately the members are the ones to draw them into the life of that church. And that’s all done through relationships.
David: Yes. And there are two components there to what you’re saying. First of all, it’s best to have relationships before the meeting starts.
Some churches say, we want to do evangelism, and I’ve never really understood that phrase. What do you mean, “do evangelism?” That’s what we live every day. So this isn’t so much, what am I doing during the three or four weeks of an evangelistic series? It’s more about, what am I doing the other 48 weeks out of the year? Does my church have a 12-18 month evangelistic strategy that combines personal evangelism, creative evangelism and public proclamation evangelism?
All these other events, we call them bridge events, are just relationship-building events. These are events that aren’t necessarily meant to proselytize, but things that are just meant to get to know people, build relationships throughout the year. So as I am funneling them through, when we do some sort of reaping series, I already have some sort of relationship with them. And that is a big deal when it comes to decisions and soul winning. Churches that have a twelve to 18-month plan will be far more successful in public evangelism than a church that just says, let’s do something for three or four weeks, but they haven’t done anything the other ten months out of the year.
The second component, you mentioned member engagement. Ron Clouzet and I served as evangelists in St. Louis for a time. I remember him saying that he can always tell when a series was going to be good. Minimum, you want one member per guest. But he said, when you get to be having two members per guest and three members per guest, that is when he sees the Holy Spirit working powerfully.
Many times members will say, oh, I’ve been to dozens of evangelistic meetings. I’ve heard all this before. And I will tell a church where I’m doing a meeting, you need to be here. I’m not asking you to come because I don’t think you know the message. Of course, if I were to ask them to give the verses of why they believe what they believe, many of them couldn’t. But the reason I want you to come here is to build relationships with these individuals, because they’re not going to stick around without that.
They can’t just be building relationships with me. They need your friendship. And I will actually tell the church, look, if you’re not going to show up to the meeting, why in the world should you expect the Holy Spirit to do the same? I’ll ask the church board to make the commitment, and I want 75% of the board committed to coming to the meetings regularly. If they can’t commit to that, then I won’t do the meeting.
Larry: When someone says, well, I’ve heard all this before, my response is, Yeah, the meeting is not for you. The meeting is for those who haven’t heard it. To me, church is not for the members. Church exists for those that are not yet part of it. And if you’re part of it, you need to be there to draw those in who are not yet part of it.
David: When I’m doing a prophecy seminar, I want it to be Christ-centered, positive and relational. How does this prophecy or doctrine point me to Jesus. How does it make my life better? So many times we get stuck on the intellectual information, the timelines, the dates. But dates don’t save people. A relationship with Jesus does. And many times members have never heard prophecies in a Christ-centered way, and in some ways it revives them as well.
Larry: I recently saw something that was written where a pastor said, we really wanted this evangelistic series to be Christ-centered. And so we didn’t talk about Bible prophecy, we just talked about Jesus. And we sent out a mailer that had a picture of Jesus on it because it was all about Jesus. But the article didn’t talk about results at all because it didn’t actually lead to people engaging in the life of that church. To me it was a misunderstanding to say, well, it’s either prophecy or Jesus, because if you’re talking about prophecy and you’re marketing a prophecy meeting, all that is a shell for you to introduce them to Jesus.
David: Yes, we see it all the time. You don’t have to choose between those things. When you share Bible prophecy, you are sharing Jesus, because all of Bible prophecy points to Jesus. And if I share the prophecies of the Bible without explaining how it points to Jesus, then I’m not really preaching prophecy. I’m just giving a bunch of information.
We see it all the time. People wonder, what’s going on in the world today. Right? That’s why they come to a prophecy seminar. But I want them to know more than just the information the prophecy says. Let’s just take the 2300 days, for example. You know, when you preach on the 2300 days, that’s not really the topic of your sermon, right? The topic is Jesus. The 2300 days is just the avenue that leads me to be able to point people to Jesus. He’s my high priest in heaven. How do you talk to Jesus as a friend? How do you have a personal prayer life? How can I relate to this sympathizing Savior who loves me and understands what I’m going through? There are so many things in that prophecy to give a picture of a merciful Savior, and I need to make sure that’s the point of the sermon, not the dates.
Of course, I want the dates to be correct. I want my exegesis to be correct and all that stuff. But if people miss the dates, but they see Jesus, I’m okay with that. Now, I’m not saying I want people to misunderstand, but if they have a relationship with Jesus, and they hunger for God’s word, I know the other stuff will come into focus eventually.
Larry: So if you’re doing a series of meetings, how do you create an environment conducive to a life-changing experience for both guests and members?
David: Well, you find opportunities for relational activities. Simple things, like I go to the meetings at least 30 to 60 minutes before it starts, because you always have people who come early. Those are perfect opportunities for me to just walk around and introduce myself and say, “Hi John. I’m glad you’re here. So what brings you to this prophecy seminar?” My visit with him might be two minutes long, but you know those two minutes are gold, because I’ve just made a connection with him. When people stay by afterwards to mingle a little bit, I can say hi. Simple things like that.
We invite people to hand in prayer requests every night. We have a generic response card, and we encourage people that if there’s something on their heart, someone or some situation, they can hand that prayer request in. And our prayer team will pray over that.
And then throughout the series, we can train members of the prayer team to call those people periodically and say, “Hey, Susie, I’m from the Prophecy Seminar. I’m on the prayer team. We got your prayer request, and we just wanted you to know that we’re praying.” We’re praying for your son as he’s serving in the Air Force. We’re praying for your uncle who’s in the hospital. Could I pray with you over the phone? There is nobody who’s going to say no to that, and they will be utterly shocked that someone’s praying with them over the phone.
Or you can even send little cards in the mail and letting them know, Hey, this is a prayer team at the seminar. We’re praying for whatever their request was. It seems like a simple thing, but it’s a step in building relationships with people.
You could have a room where there’s special health checks going on. Medical personnel can be doing blood pressures or just offering different things, and that gives people a chance to bring friends to the meeting. You’re offering something practical, and to do something like that, you have to talk, you have to engage. It’s just building relationships. You need to engage with people.
Larry: So you’re talking about, outside the meetings themselves, doing these little pings where you’re making a little connection, whether it’s a phone call, or a card, or an email, or a text. What are some other things outside of the meetings that you can do to help guests in their spiritual growth and in their engagement?
David: Oh, you must visit people. It’s imperative. I have told pastors, if you’re not going to visit during evangelistic meetings, then you might as well not hold an evangelistic meeting, because that visitation is really what helps me to connect with people.
You have to have a strategy, so you know the purpose when you’re visiting. Are you visiting after you covered the Second Coming? Or after someone has accepted Jesus as their savior? How do I visit someone who wants to know more about the Sabbath? You need to have a purpose for that visit.
I love the visitation part. Yeah, it makes me nervous sometimes. But if I know what my reason is, I get to hear their stories. Every time we ask, “So, Joe, how did you hear about the meetings?” Or, “Susan, what brought you to this seminar?” And whenever you ask that question, you’re going to hear a story. It might be a big story. It might be a small story. They may tell you a little because they’re not comfortable yet, or they may tell you more than you were ready for. And just by listening, you’re connecting with them. You’re showing, hey, I care.
Larry: We live in a society where the idea of somebody coming into your home is a really foreign concept. But as I was reflecting on this from previous conversations that I’ve had with you, David, it occurred to me that in our society today people are really good at compartmentalizing. They’ve got their work, and then they’ve got their home. And when they’re coming to these meetings, they’re compartmentalizing the meetings. But by visiting them in their home, you’re actually breaking down the boundaries where they’re compartmentalizing things. And it’s allowing the truth that they’re learning in the meetings to begin to seep into other parts of their life. I think that there’s something powerful about that. When you visit them, you’re breaking down those compartmentalized boundaries.
David: Visitation is so important, but I think that we sometimes assume things that we hear other people say, only to find out that they’re really not true. When I was an evangelist in a big city, people would say, well, you can’t visit people in their home anymore. I found that to be utterly false. Because 75% of the time, it was never a problem.
This is why early in the meeting, you’re talking with people, connecting with them, building relationships. So when the time comes that you do have a visit at a home, or a coffee shop, or Dunkin’ Donuts, or wherever people are comfortable, they know you. They’ve been to the meeting for over a week. They probably talked to you there. That’s why you do this, because it opens the door to have that home visit.
I can tell you, those visits are awesome, because I get to hear their stories. They become more than just a face with a name. Now when I see Bob there, I know his story. I know what’s on his heart. I know what he might be struggling with. And that’s exciting for me, because now I feel I’m preaching to real people. And it allows me to maybe even adjust some of the things I’m saying, because now I know what’s going on in people’s hearts.
Larry: Let’s go back to the church members. What do you do with members to prepare them for an evangelistic series? And what are your Sabbath morning messages to them during the series?
David: Well, it goes back to the twelve to 18 months strategy. Every church at the end of the year should be sitting down and developing what’s their strategy for the next twelve months. What events, what activities are they doing, and getting their leaders and members on board from the beginning. This is what we’re doing this year, this is why, this is the purpose.
Through that, you’re challenging them. You’re preaching messages on mission, soul-winning, and making a difference in the lives of people. Say to them, “This year, are you willing to ask God to lay on your heart the name of one person in your life that maybe doesn’t know Jesus or just is struggling, and they just need a genuine Christian as their friend? Would you be willing to ask God to let your life intersect with someone like that and to connect with them and be their friend?”
If we’re doing that throughout the year, God is going to use that powerfully. And then when we do a reaping series, we already have someone that’s ripe to come. Then leading up to the meetings, before we invite guests, we’re preaching soul-winning messages on Sabbath morning so the members can understand.
It’s exciting to be used by God to make a difference in the life of others. It’s really what helps us church members, and us speakers. Our life’s full of problems, too. We have weaknesses, we have things maybe we inherited from our families that we struggle with. But you know, when I’m involved in making a difference in the life of another person, that’s also how God grows me and my own weaknesses by being involved in service. So it’s as important for the members as it is for the guest.
Larry: You’ve mentioned this idea of a year-long or 18-month plan. Public evangelistic meetings are only one component of an effective evangelism strategy. So what are the other components? What have you seen to be an effective cycle of evangelism in a church?
David: The church that I attend is the Westminster Church in Maryland. I invite anyone to talk to the pastor there, Ignacio Goya, because he really understands what it means to have a cycle of evangelism. We did a ten-day series there in October, just ten days, and they’re still getting baptisms from that series. People continue to invite friends to church because they’ve been impacted by it.
We’re about to do a full series there starting September 30. But that church is at it all year long. They’ve got different health events, they’ve got Youth Sabbath, they’ve got things they’re doing with a community home school association, who they allow to use their buildings. They have things strategically planned all throughout the year that give members the chance to build relationships, invite guests, personal, creative evangelism. And that is really what has paved the way. With all these relationships built, it’s only natural when a reaping series comes, they already know you, they’ve already been to the church. A lot of the barriers to going somewhere new are already wiped out because they’ve been there. They know some people there. That’s a big deal.
Doing public evangelism is hard work. But you don’t just set up and do it. You need a plan all throughout the year that leads to that. When you do that, yes, public evangelistic meetings are a lot of work, but you’re more effective. And the fruit of it is filled with joy.
Larry: When you’re planning your evangelism calendar for the following year, I like the idea of putting a stake in the ground and saying, we’re going to have our public evangelistic meetings on this date. And now what do we need to do to prepare for that over the next nine, ten, twelve months? Set the date for the reaping series then work backward from there. Put that stake in the ground and say, we’re going to do this. So how do we make this as effective as possible?
David: Right! You’re not having just isolated events. Oh, Men’s ministry does their thing, health ministry does their thing, does their thing. No, it’s all working together because you’re all a team and all the connections you’re making with all these different ministries are moving together. We all want to invite them to experience life change and follow Jesus. So it connects, it funnels into a reaping series. These aren’t disconnected things. No, they’re all connected together. One doesn’t work without the other.
Larry: And why is it the public evangelistic meetings are so important? It’s because you’re asking for decisions. All these other things are relationship-building and you might be asking for certain types of decisions in a Men’s retreat or something like that, but everything’s leading up to the public evangelism series. We’re going to go through the complete message of the Adventist Church and ask you to take steps closer to Jesus through this experience. So everything’s pointing to that and then it really is a reaping series. You’re harvesting what you’ve planted.
David: Studies still show that growing churches have public evangelism as part of what they do. It is not the only thing that they do, but it is an important component of what they do. If I only do public evangelism and I forget about personal and leading relationships, building relationships, having a culture of evangelism in the church, I’m going to get few results.
And that’s where this false dichotomy comes from. The people say public evangelism doesn’t work anymore. Well, it’s probably because we focused on four weeks instead of 52 weeks. And then you have others say, I’m just going to do personal evangelism, but at some point, I need to invite them to follow Jesus. They all work together, right? There’s no dichotomy. It’s not either/or. As the Ohio conference president Buff Condif would say, it’s both/and.
Larry: I had an old Adventist friend I was spending time with a few weeks ago, and said, “Churches used to do these prophecy seminars, and that was really effective before. But are churches doing now? Because I’ve been really struggling trying to find something that’s effective today.”
He went on to me about an experience where he was doing personal evangelism with an individual, building a relationship, and actually doing Bible studies with them. But he was having a hard time finding a way to actually help them make decisions to, in the end, identify with the Remnant Church. And I said to him, you need the reaping series. The great thing about a Reaping series is that it’s a structured way of leading people through these decisions. And what makes it effective is when lots of people have done what you’re doing with lots of guests leading up to it, and now it really is just reaping.
David: Well, sure, there are people that make decisions in a personal Bible study. That’s wonderful. It’s like a mini evangelistic series. But when you invite them to come to a public series around other people, it’s hard to put in to words, but there is just an energy. Call it the Holy Spirit’s presence, it’s just a different kind of momentum. And then, if they’ve already been introduced to Bible studies, it gives them an opportunity to invite their own friends or family to something else that is going on. Putting these things together, it’s a different atmosphere than a one-on-one Bible study. Both are good and important. But there’s something special about when people come together.
I know not everyone is going to be reached by a public evangelistic series. You need all kinds of evangelism. But what I fear is the self-fulfilling prophecy, which I think happens a lot. People have already convinced themselves, public evangelism doesn’t work anymore. And I’ve gotten to the point where even when I hear speakers up front say that, I just smile to myself and I let it go. Because I’ve watched it work for 20 years when it’s done right.
But if I go into something believing that it’s not going to work, that is exactly what I’m going to get. I think it was Joe Kitter that interviewed pastors and churches that were successful in soul-winning. And one of the things that all of them had in common is the church believed they could win souls. The church believed there were people who were open and who were searching.
There are churches who believe that the world’s too secular. People aren’t interested. They don’t want the Bible anymore. Those were not growing churches because they have already convinced themselves that people aren’t interested.
Larry: I want to turn to a project you’ve been working on. SermonView has actually been helping out on this, developing a brand new preaching series that’s available for pastors and lay people to be able to use in their ministry environment. So I want to give you a chance to tell us about Forecasting Hope.
David: Well, Forecasting Hope is a new evangelism package that we’re developing here in Chesapeake. The Columbia Union has partnered with us, as well as SermonView, and we’ve invited Ministry Magazine, as well. It’s a whole package of 21 evangelistic sermons that are Christ-centered, positive, and relational. How does this prophecy or doctrine point me to Jesus and the cross?
There will be new graphics that are being designed right now. The guy that designed Voice of Prophecy’s graphics is designing the PowerPoints and the Keynote slides. They will be editable. And one of the things I think that will be different about this is there will also be instruction on how to visit. What do you do each night and why? And we’re even recording actual role plays on what a visit looks like in each part of the series.
Larry: Nice.
David: How do you visit someone at the meeting? How do you visit someone who wants to accept Jesus? How do you visit someone who’s interested in the Sabbath? Those visits are going to be role-played and recorded so people can actually see. Here’s the questions you ask. Here’s why you ask those questions, here’s the purpose of the visit. We’re excited about that.
Larry: One of the things I love about a package like this is there’s something intricate about the way that we put together an evangelistic series. And if you pull out just one aspect of it, you could break the whole thing and it becomes a lot less effective. Having a long-time, seasoned evangelist like David putting these scripts together, they’re intentional in their flow and the call each night, I’m really excited about this. As a tool for pastors and lay people, you’ll be able to just pull it out of the box.
David: A lot of illustrations in my sermons are my own personal ones, but we put different illustrations in because you have to have your own stories. And we even put signs in there, like, here’s the place where you can tell a little story about yourself, tell your testimony. All that will be in there. It’s personable, and we’ve asked the designer to make the slides editable as well.
Larry: Having this all put together, it makes it a lot easier to actually be able to do a full-message series. I’m really excited about this. And the designer who’s working on this, I worked with him at It Is Written many years ago. He was involved in the New Beginnings DVD Evangelism series and the Acts 2000 graphics. He’s done graphics for GC session. He’s amazing, and the graphics are going to be really great. You can get more information about the series at https://qlck.it/ForecastingHope.
David, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. I appreciate your heart for Jesus and your passion to reach a hurting world for Christ. Any final thoughts? You’re an evangelist, do you have a call for us today?
David: I guess the call would be to encourage our members and yourselves to understand that Jesus said, the harvest truly is great. And Jesus said that in a society that was ready to crucify him on a cross where he had only twelve followers, the entire religious system rejected him. And you wonder, how could Jesus say that the harvest is truly great in that context? The reason Jesus said that is because he was out with people, mingling with them personally. He saw the needs that were there. And when you’re out with people today in this world, young and old, you see that there are people very much interested in spiritual things. They may not be people who are going to church right now, they may not know their name is Jesus, but they’re wanting something better.
Are we willing to encourage our members to say, Lord, will you bring across my path one person that just needs to know Jesus, that I could be a friend with this year and intentionally connect with? If every member of a church were to do that at the beginning of every year, say, Lord, connect me with one person that I can really intentionally spend time with, our evangelism would change the world. That would definitely make our reaping series or any evangelism ten times better.
On the webinar recording, David also answered audience questions about visitation, online evangelistic meetings, and a widespread misunderstanding of Ellen White’s quote from Ministry of Healing, “Christ’s method alone brings true success.” Watch the full webinar to see his replies.
At SermonView, we have a passion for ministry, and we’re nerds for marketing. We believe that church exists for those who are not yet part of it, so our passion is helping churches like yours reach people in your community who are ready to connect with you. We do that by helping you market your evangelistic events, and by finding people in your community ready to study the Bible with you. And we can also help you turn your church website into an evangelism engine.
The SermonView crew would love to help you market your next evangelistic event. Let us know if you have an evangelistic series coming up, call us today at 800-525-5791.