The 1946 Fall Council the General Conference Executive Committee was authorized to call a special group together to study the question of how to organize our church program in order to make opportunity for more soul-winning evangelism. That committee, or commission, met last October in Kansas City, Missouri. It consisted of more than forty brethren, including some General Conference officers, the union conference presidents of North America, several local conference presidents, some experienced evangelists and pastors, as well as certain departmental leaders and the secretaries of the Ministerial Association.
Those who attended will not soon forget the spirit of earnest consecration and prayerful study that marked every meeting during those two intensive days. Many questions challenged our thinking, and the discussions revealed the concern of all, for we were made to realize the inadequacy of our present program in meeting the needs of the hour.
In an endeavor to share the spirit of this important council with our workers throughout the world field, we bring you some of the observations and questions thrown into the discussion, that you may ponder them prayerfully.
The result of this committee's work is contained in the series of recommendations on evangelism passed at the 1947 Fall Council and appearing on page 21.
Questions by Leaders at Kansas City Council
"As A DENOMINATION, are we placing the emphasis on evangelism or organizational mechanics?"
"ARE WE SATISFIED with the tempo of OUT movement, or is it challenging us to make some changes?"
"WAS THERE EVER such a time as the 'good old days'?"
"ARE WE FAILING to recognize that ew times call for new approaches?"
"Is OUR MINISTERIAL training program truly practical, or are we placing our emphasis more on academic attainment than on real soul-winning qualifications?"
"ARE WE ALWAYS conscious that our power is in prayer rather than equipment and organization?"
"SHOULD WE NOT, as workers, set our eyes on the value of a human soul?"
"Do WE SENSE the fact that we have a dying world on our hands?"
"SHOULD NOT the times in which we live challenge us to do much more with less money in less time?"
"ARE WE PLANNING properly. to save the twelve hundred of our own youth who reach the age of accountability every year in North America?"
"Do WE INDIVIDUALLY have the assurance that we are in the place where God wants us to be, or would He have to work a miracle, as He did with Jonah, to get us onto or field?" 41, "ARE WE NOT holding too many men in settled pastorates who should be out evangelizing in new places?"
"ARE WE PERSONAL soul winners, Or do we try to do our evangelism by proxy?"
"IN OUR EVANGELISM, do we start where the people really are in their thinking, or where we think they ought to be?"
"HAVE WE FORGOTTEN that individual evangelism was the big thing in the life of the Master?"
"Do WE STUDY to use men to the best advantage, placing them where they can make the largest contribution of their talent to the cause?"
"SHOULD WE isroT combine highway and byway evangelism in an effort to reach all classes?"
"Is THERE a sufficient proportion of tithe money being used for definite evangelism in unentered territory?"
"SHOULD WE SIMPLIFY our denominational program in order to permit our ministers to devote more time to public evangelism?"
"ARE WE SATISFIED to be ordinary men when the times demand extraordinary men?"
R. A. A.
