It’s wonderful to raise our Ebenezer and declare that at Sioux Falls “the Lord helped us” but it’s also good to learn lessons the Lord taught us.
Because so much ground has been lost over the last few decades of evangelistic inactivity or ineffectiveness, we’re having to learn the process almost from scratch. With an increasing desire to get back into real gospel work—not just preaching a salvation message to our own people in the comfort and safety of our own buildings—some are venturing out a little way from shore.
At best, however, we have been chumming, throwing bait into the water with no hooks, no means of actually bringing the fish in. Where is the follow-up? How many times in the last year has our baptistry been used for someone saved out of our local community? Ouch!
To use another analogy, scattering seed across the land, like Johnny Appleseed, makes for good fable but for bad farming. We need to methodically cover our own part of the field and then expect to also be involved in bringing in the harvest. Sow. Weep. Wait. Reap. Like that.
Sioux Falls was a good opportunity to see different methods and styles of evangelism at work in an array of venues. Many good suggestions were made by these believers. And all were willing to regroup and rework things when we were stymied. So what were some of the valuable lessons learned as we labored together in that needy city?
1. We need a more balanced division of labor: We had 250 people at one end of the conveyor belt and a handful at the other. Probably a few hundred hopeful individuals were recorded during the week that required sometimes a dozen visits to make contact. More requests for visits came in by reply cards, and one-on-one Bible studies were arranged by the score.
As well, the kid’s clubs in the parks were continued. Plus responsibilities for regular meetings on the Lord’s Day and at other times also rested on the same shoulders. No wonder Larry Sax was unable to keep his “day” job and gave himself full time to the work. We need to see a group of exercised and capable people who are willing to follow the sowers and help with the reaping. This is essential.
2. We need to encourage those with the gift of showing mercy to join: We should have had a place on our record pad that read: “Good works required”—a single mom with a broken fence or an old widow with a garden that needed weeding. Many not inclined to join in a gospel effort like this would be eager to do good works—baby sitting, fixing leaky faucets, baking, etc. Linking good news with good works would increase both our visibility in the city, our acceptance with the people—and our obedience to the Word! We would need to explain to recipients that we were not doing this work for them (so they did not feel beholden to us); we were doing it for the Lord because He had been so good to us (and therefore giving Him the glory). Good works + good news = good success.
3. We need to do this kind of thing regularly and more often: It was suggested that if specific weeks each year were slated for united gospel efforts, more people could plan ahead. That’s good thinking, but the rate-determining step is still eager and capable believers willing to move to these needy areas and lay down their lives for the establishment of brightly shining lampstands. This is the need of the hour. Hopefully three couples would begin meeting now to pray and examine the whole array of Bible truth so the Lord could redeploy them when their hearts are beating as one, linked by the Holy Spirit into a beachhead force for the next campaign. See also the information in the article “Where To Now?” on page 30.