The evangelistic challenge presented to the ministry of every age has been tremendous, but it is certainly evident that the greatest challenge of all has been committed to the Adventist ministry. The third angel's message must reach the whole world in this generation. How to use available funds, where to assign our evangelists, and how to direct the work from day to day so as to speed efficiently and successfully the completion of this world task are problems requiring the genius of our combined leadership.
I believe we have found one of the answers to the evangelistic problem in St. Louis by the establishing of this very fine evangelistic center. I also believe that the development of like centers in the other great metropolitan areas of the world would contribute more than almost anything else to the speedy fulfillment of our Lord's commission.
In making this statement I would not minimize the importance of the worldwide broad cast of the Voice of Prophecy, or the mighty right arm of medical ministry, or the publishing and distribution of our truth-filled literature, or the training of youth for an ever growing army of workers. These are all divinely appointed agencies working harmoniously together toward the one grand objective. But after all these departments have done their work, we still need the living preacher to gather in the fruitage of our combined labors. And that is where the evangelistic center with its stream of specialists in soul winning, ably preaching the truth under the flag of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, will serve as a citadel of refuge for all who come out of the world, or out of Babylon as we say, to unite with the people who "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
St. Louis is our nation's sixth largest metropolitan area in population. Consequently, it too is numbered among the great cities named by the messenger of the Lord as standing "in the shadow of impending doom." In a determined effort to follow the counsel of the Lord in working for our large cities, a group of us workers eventually managed to acquire the present site of the Central church as an evangelistic center. The story of how God led us in selling our former church building and how we purchased this large valuable property in the very heart of the city is quite well known. Morning and evening of every business day seventy-five thousand people pass our church. A large bulletin-type sign on the corner of our property with the name Central Church of Seventh-day Adventists, in gold neon on top, announces the daily program to these thousands. Ten different lines of bus and streetcar transportation pass within two or three blocks of the church. One of the principal bus routes has a stop in front of the church door, and the others are all within short walking distance. The location is ideal for an evangelistic center.
Meetings are generally conducted three nights weekly—Sunday, Wednesday, and Fri day. We have a team of three ministers, including Charles Keymer as our singing evangelist, * and Bradford Braley as organist and choir director.
We are working in the very days when the t "harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few." We have all prayed that the Lord may send not only laborers but greater financial resources into the harvest. But from the present scarcity both of money and workers it is apparent that the plan of such an evangelistic center is the most economical method ever de vised. It serves the purpose of evangelizing the city and of pastoring churches of a large metro politan area. In addition to our intensive evangelistic program, the same team of men in St. Louis cares for five adjacent churches in the St. Louis district. Elder Keymer pastors the South Side church of one hundred members and one outlying church fifty miles away. Mr. Braley assists the director in the large Central church, and conducts the Sabbath service in the Flat River church at least twice a month.
This church is seventy miles distant and meets in the afternoon. In addition to my regular pastoral responsibilities, one afternoon of each month I visit the Bourbon church, which has a new building for its fifty members under the leadership of W. K. Smith, now retired.
Our budget for the first twenty-week campaign was a thousand dollars net. Many large efforts have been known to cost one thousand dollars a week, and ten-thousand-dollar to thirty-thousand-dollar campaigns are not un known among us. A dollar will stretch farther in the evangelistic center than elsewhere. Think of the money we save on rent! And there is no expiration of contracts at the height of interest or union laborers' fees to pay!
All our advertising is done in the name of the Central Seventh-day Adventist church. This type of advertising, together with the stra tegic location of our evangelistic center, has brought the denomination from virtual obscurity to city-wide prominence almost overnight. Our radio program, which is broadcast directly from the church every Sunday morning, is an nounced as the Adventist Hour. It is winning a host of friends all over the Middle West and is securing Bible school enrollees by the score.
In former years many of our evangelists spent thousands of dollars in simply advertising our Bible lectures. How much better to use each dollar in advertising our foremost product —the Adventist Church and the message.
In our very first year this evangelistic center revealed the possibilities of such a plan, for under the blessing of God we were privileged to add more than seventy new converts to the church, eighteen of whom had been Catholics in this predominantly Catholic city. At the time I pastored the church every one of the thousands of people who attended our meetings knew they were attending a Seventh-day Adventist service.
The St. Louis center provides for a continuous evangelistic program, which promises to be more and more successful as it becomes better known throughout the city. This city has a growing population, increasing by approximately twenty-five thousand every year. Of this number twenty thousand reach the age of accountability annually. Think of what this figure must be over the world! How are we going to warn the world of the soon return of Christ in the face of such yearly growth? The continuous witness of the evangelistic center will keep our church and message constantly before the people, and is bound to be far more effective than the spasmodic campaigns of the past.
If you were to drop in for a visit in our center some Sunday evening, you would hear the inspiring music of Bradford Braley at the con sole beginning promptly at seven-thirty. Soon you would see the choir enter the chancel with Charles Keymer directing the singing of the sacred songs loved by all Christians. Generally during: this time Mrs. Grace Shultz, our artist, as well as Bible instructor, presents her beautifully drawn pictures in full color. Our theme song, "For God So Loved the World," is the entrance signal for the evangelist, and after prayer and necessary announcements the evangelistic sermon is presented. The most important part of the sermon is the closing appeal, which always begins with an organ background and the synchronization of the appeal song carefully chosen to make even more impressive the invitation for surrendering to the pleadings of the Holy Spirit.
When altar calls are made the combination of the organ and Brother Keymer's solos con tributes immeasurably to their success. At times our minister of song stands in one aisle and I in the other as we press earnestly our appeals for surrender. Brother Braley stays at the organ until the service is concluded.
We greatly enjoy our privilege of working together as a team in the St. Louis Evangelistic Center, and unite in praying that God may use us individually in the winning of many precious souls. We sense keenly that we are working together under the challenge of the Lord's commission to preach the gospel to all men.
