FORDYCE W. DETAMORE, Far Eastern Division Evangelist
Just as I arranged paper and pen to write I this article, there came a knock at my hotel door here in Medan, Sumatra. It was a young Indonesian Moslem, nineteen years old. He came to talk with me about how to become an Adventist, having decided to join our church. He has been listening to the truth now for ten days.
This young man's father works in the government and is a fanatical Moslem. The son told me he has already discussed our faith with his father. The father has threatened him that if he goes ahead with his decision, he must be put out of his home and disinherited.
It had not been my plan to use a stirring experience like that to begin this article. But it does illustrate what I feel impressed to urge: I believe that somehow in this Atomic Age we must step up our evangelistic tempo. We here have tried a quicker program, and are overwhelmed with what we've seen accomplished in so short a time, wholly as a result of the mighty movings of the Holy Spirit in these stir ring times.
It began like this: We have been holding six- month campaigns in the large cities of the Orient, with at least token success. N. C. Wilson, president, and Harry Johnson, treasurer of the Indonesian Union, kept urging us to come to this great field for a series of meetings, probably to be held in the capital, Jakarta. By post poning again our return to America we were able to come for nearly six months. (We originally came to the Orient for two years. It will be more than five and a half when we get back.)
But the union committee asked, "Why spend all the time in one city? The field is four thousand miles across, and it would be impossible to bring all workers together for an evangelistic institute. Why not take the institutes and the meetings to the field?" We said we would try.
Raymond Turner, formerly of the Voice of Prophecy, with his wife accompanying, has put on a marvelous musical program throughout Indonesia, winning tens of thousands of friends for this message. One large Dutch newspaper report spoke of it as "a treat such as our city hears only once in ten years!"
Never have I seen a whole union enter so wholeheartedly into one big evangelistic drive. You would think every person, from the union president and treasurer down, was an evangelist! There are eight mission and island fields. That meant eight evangelistic institutes. But the brethren wanted to give our workers every where a sample of evangelism. So a whole series of evangelistic campaigns for all Indonesia was planned. To these central meetings all workers were brought in for the institutes and for the duration of the campaigns. In many places more lay members were in attendance than paid workers.
In most of the larger centers we held two- week series, but in some places only one-week series, with institute classes every forenoon. Afternoons were spent visiting backsliders and new interests in their homes.
Pattern of the Condensed Series
These short evangelistic series followed this pattern: first, prophecy; second, faith and acceptance (finding Christ); third, doctrines; and fourth, surrender. In each series we covered the whole of our doctrines in condensed form so that listeners could know what the Seventh-day Adventist Church represents and be able to join a baptismal class intelligently. Calls for surrender were made on the last Sabbath afternoon and the closing Sunday night. These names were cared for in Bible study classes, in preparation for baptism.
Amazing Results Quickly Seen
We have hardly been able to believe what we have witnessed during these last five or six months in Indonesia. Most of all we have been impressed that "a quick work will the Lord do," and that "the work will be finished not so much by arguments but by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit." Scores and hundreds every where have shown a hungering after the truth and a longing to come in quickly.
Two days ago I began this article, and now I can add that the young Moslem in Medan has asked our pastor for daily studies so he can come in more quickly. They study at eight o'clock daily. A fine young Moslem in Menado came at the close of one week of meetings, and under great conviction asked to be baptized. I would not convey the impression that hundreds of Moslems are storming the church doors. (In Bandung those waiting outside for the second service to begin knocked on the large front doors and called in, "Open the doors of heaven!" Not bad advice to our preachers everywhere!) But to have even a few (and there have been many) who accept this truth so quickly is surely a new day for Moslems. In one meeting we had nearly six hundred Moslems in attendance. In most cities I suppose there have been between 50 and 150. How responsive and respectful they are! On the streets they greet us as very close friends.
In North Celebes a devout Moslem declared this among his people: "I believe God has sent these two brethren to us to call Moslems and Christians to repentance and to get ready for the great day of judgment. I believe there is very little time left, and we must repent quickly. When this last warning has been given, I be lieve great judgments will soon fall on our land!" This caused quite a stir among the Moslems there, and many came. Three have already taken their stand to be baptized.
I have a sort of allergy for statistics the word itself is difficult to pronounce! But perhaps the following few figures may be of interest in giving a picture of our varied endeavors.
As a side line to the evangelistic institutes we held evangelistic meetings. As a side line to the evangelistic meetings we visited in the homes and made calls for surrender. As another side line we gathered enrollments in the Voice of Prophecy Bible Correspondence Course. As an additional side line we held open-air meetings. As still another side line, on the intervening nights between the closing of a series in one city and the opening night in the next, we were kept busy by holding one- and two-night rallies in smaller towns between the larger cities.
Now here are the statistics:Preached in 27 different places in Indonesia; 163 meetings; 104 evangelistic methods classes (1 1/2 hours each); 432 homes visited (my own personal report; hundreds of other homes visited by other workers); 737 took stand for baptism; Offering Rs. 40,000 U.S. $3,500; 18,300 enrolled in Bible course; 134,000 total attendance in all meetings; 5 months of work; 680 solos sung by Brother Turner
Perhaps the greatest good of the meetings will be the follow-up work of interests that will develop through the Voice of Prophecy enrollments gathered, and also the increased enthusiasm of our own band of workers throughout In donesia. The 737 who took their stand for the truth are a rather encouraging by-product when it is remembered that we were visiting the field primarily for institute work. Perhaps a high percentage of those who took their stand may not follow through. But in each center our workers were left with more names than they could keep up with those requesting baptism. We know they will do their best to gather in the harvest.
We prepared one lithographed handbill and one poster for all of Indonesia. In each city the time and place of meetings were printed in locally. This greatly reduced the advertising costs. On the closing night of each series a special offering envelope was passed out and a special offering taken. We have hardly been able to believe the financial response in all these cities. It has been far beyond all our expectations.
Advantages of the Condensed Campaign
We do not think these high-speed, condensed evangelistic campaigns are a substitute for full-length campaigns. They may be a partial answer, however, to one great problem: How are we to hold meetings in all the great cities of our con ferences and missions? Holding only two campaigns a year, the evangelistic team will take a long, long time to cover a field. But if each conference and mission might arrange for one evangelistic team to be engaged in this stepped-up program, certainly a quicker work could be done. One team should be able to cover at least from fifteen to seventeen cities a year. In smaller places even a week produces a good harvest. By blanket printing for the whole field, advertising costs are cut down. Also the offerings are usually quite large.
Other advantages of this condensed campaign plan are these: Many of our city pastors are so buried in local work that they seem to have neither time nor energy to hold public meetings. Yet there is a harvest waiting to be gathered in at every center. An evangelistic team can help the pastor in quick harvesting.
Also, this plan has the advantage of having the preparation for baptism rest entirelyin the hands of the pastor. Some pastors object that evangelists baptize too quickly. (This is no place to argue that point!) But in the quick campaign the local pastor can afterward take as long as he likes in indoctrinating, instructing, and solidifying the candidates for baptism. They are all his fruit. He picks them up. The evangelistic team just shakes the tree and the ripest fruit falls. The pastor sets his own pace in the gathering of the fruitage.
We offer two gift books for perfect attendance one for each week in the series. This helps to build a steadier attendance so very important in the high-speed series. After a few weeks in most of our long city campaigns the week-night attendance averages only one fourth the Sunday night attendance. But in these quick campaigns the week night attendance is often as large as that of the opening night and some times larger. The second Sunday night we al ways have a double session to accommodate a larger attendance, and in every city the hall has been packed twice. In Menado, North Celebes, we had three meetings the second Sunday night: five to seven, seven to nine, and nine to eleven. Between six and seven thousand people came the largest attendance we have ever seen in our meetings. The second crowd was so immense that the ushers couldn't get through to take up the offering! It was a night we won't soon for get. Twelve long benches crashed under the human overload. Two people fainted. Six children lost their parents or vice versa. Three people, including an army officer, lost their purses. The police said there were more people in our meeting than had turned out to see the president. Well, I know there were more people than we knew what to do with in a very temporary tabernacle built to seat 1,850.
There is another meeting I must mention, and that is our open-air meeting in Menado. We had no members with wind instruments, so one of our ministers arranged for five army men (in uniform) to play for us. One of the choirs sang. Brother Turner sang too, of course.
We could hardly believe it, but we gathered 1,801 Bible course enrollments that night. One night in Bandung, Java, our outdoor platform was 140 feet in front of the mosque. A high percent age of our audience were Moslems. That night 456 enrolled. What a day in which to be living! What a day to be preaching this thrilling message! In one town while we ate dinner passers-by used the jeep as an enrollment desk, and more than one hundred enrolled while we ate! We could write a book on the thrilling experiences we've had in these fields, but we are too busy. We must wait till we go on sustentation to have time for that, I fear. Never will we forget these wonderful days in Indonesia.
This high-speed evangelism has so gotten into our blood and into our hearts that it is going to seem rather selfish to settle down to the easy life of evangelists moving only twice a year. Perhaps the Lord wants to stir up our nest, so that we too may keep up with these stirring times, when He has promised to "do a quick work in the earth."
Perhaps our parting memories of these days in Indonesia can best be pictured in the scene at the airport there in the North Celebes. Out ten miles in the country, and in spite of the rain, came more than four hundred people to wave good-by. Four choirs sang. It isn't easy to stand there as your tears mix with the rain and hear those dear, dear people singing "God be with you till we meet again!"
Bible Correspondence Schools
FORDYCE W. DETAMORE, Far Eastern Division Evangelist
The Bible correspondence school is a comparatively new plan. In its short lifetime it has earned the right to an important place in the growing family of aids to evangelism. Its coming was an answer to the gospel worker's prayer. Its many advantages, its high productivity, and its low cost have made it an indispensable adjunct to our program of worldwide evangelism. The Bible correspondence school is a gift of God. This marvelous new tool has been placed in our hands as another aid to make possible a quicker work in the earth.
In recognition both of the importance and of the undeveloped potential of the Bible correspondence school, two workshops were authorized by action of the 1952 Autumn Council. These met during the month of March, 1953, one in Denver and the other in Washington, B.C. They were the first of their kind. For three days the men and women in charge of these schools studied earnestly and prayerfully to learn how to improve the lessons, the procedure of handling lessons, the methods of securing enrollments, of following up interested students, and of bringing more students to a decision.
To open the workshop program, T. L. Os wald, general chairman, presented a report of the work of the forty-six conference schools in North America. During the past five years, while these schools were under the direction of the Home Missionary Department, 6,576 students were reported baptized. As the number of baptisms increased each year, the cost per baptism and the total operating costs have de clined. A number of schools are operating with out cost to the conference aside from salaries. At the close of 1952, 35,761 students were re ported currently active, or having sent in at least one completed test paper within three months. An additional 52,000 persons were re ceiving Bible lessons on the continuous mailing plan followed by the Southern Union school. These figures show promise for many more baptisms during 1953.
Recommendations
The workshop delegates have recommended that each church member be asked to secure at least one signed Bible course application monthly. Certainly this is a reasonable objective. If reached, it will mean well over three million new applications annually. Cards and other advertising materials will be made more attractive and appealing, and will be supplied to churches without charge. Pastors, who are always anxious to baptize more converts, will help make that possible by keeping their members supplied with cards and encouraged to use them. The number of Bible school students baptized in a district depends to a large extent upon the number of students in that district who enroll.
Without question, the most important phase of Bible school evangelism is the personal follow-up. Graduates cannot be expected to come of themselves to the nearest Seventh-day Adventist church fully prepared for baptism and begging for admission to church membership. Personal work in the home is as necessary in this as in all other forms of evangelism. No satisfactory substitute can ever be devised. Personal work is necessary in helping the student to make one or more of the great decisions of life surrender to Christ, acceptance of His law, conformity to His standards, and union with His church.
How foolish it would be to operate a Bible school to find and develop prospects for church membership, and then fail to visit these persons personally! It seems unbelievable that there are students who complete one or more Bible courses and yet who are not visited. To suggest reasons for such failure would be to excuse it, but it certainly seems inexcusable.
Travel expense and time limitations are factors that constitute formidable obstacles. In an attempt to cope with these, the workshops made several recommendations. Conference committees were asked to give study to providing adequate budgets to meet follow-up travel expense. Surely a conference that appropriates funds to operate a Bible school will be anxious to appropriate the funds necessary for following up the Bible school interests. When a conference worker cannot, because of time limitations, follow up all interested students personally, it was suggested that qualified laymen be carefully chosen and trained to assist in this work. The Home Missionary Department is preparing a leaflet with practical instruction on follow-up work for use by these laymen. Extreme care should be exercised in the selection of the lay men, in order to avoid some very unfortunate developments that have at times ensued in the past. The schools will furnish as much informa tion about each student as possible, particularly about location and directions for finding the home. It is very desirable to have the conference worker make as many calls as possible. We know from experience that he has many other things to do, but few of them are more important than this.
To be sure, not every student who finishes a course is deeply interested; neither is every reader of our literature nor every attendant at an evangelistic meeting deeply interested. On the other hand, some Bible school students are very much interested. It is impossible to ascertain the degree of interest without making a personal call. How shortsighted to neglect calling on all, or on any, because some may not prove deeply interested! Even some with lesser degrees of interest may welcome personal Bible studies and have their interest developed.
At a recent laymen's meeting two Bible school students from one family were baptized. Several times the Bible school had asked the nearest pastor to call, but he asked to be excused. The interest appeared so deep that a worker from the conference office made a special trip, and found these students able to answer with a Bible text all questions dealing with our doctrines. After a second visit they were ready for baptism and membership in the conference church. The worker who had failed to visit them then objected because he was not permit ted to officiate at the baptism!
Most workers are glad for all these Bible school follow-up leads, and visit all they can. These are gilt-edged names of persons who know most of our doctrines and have either accepted some of them or are under conviction. It may be that the next such name we receive, or the one following, or a subsequent one, will be the name of an honest soul "on the verge of the kingdom, waiting only to be gathered in." Acts of the Apostles, p. 109. But what if no one should call?
In the final workshop meeting, devoted to a symposium on soul winning, a goal for enrollments and for souls for 1953 was set for each Bible school. These amounted to 168,700 en rollments and 3,226 souls.
The future of Bible correspondence school evangelism looks much brighter after these workshops, and its effects will be deepened as each conference and district develops definite plans to increase enrollments and to follow up every interested student.
The school is operated as an important aid to help our churches and workers evangelize their territory, to find and develop more prospects for church membership. When the most is made of this wonderful evangelistic agency, millions of honest souls will learn the third angel's message and many thousands will take their stand with God's people.
History of the Bible Correspondence Course Plan
PAUL WICKMAN and BEN GLANZER
Seventh-day Adventists conducted the world's first evangelistic Bible correspondence schools. In the summer of 1937 the Southern Publishing Association put John L. Shuler's 23-lesson Bible course, which he had prepared for community Bible schools, into printed form, later naming it the Home Bible Course. This was not the first evangelistic Bible course ever to be used, however, for Arthur Cone had written a very effective course which he had used as early as the year 1924 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Elder Shuler adapted the idea to a wider use, with excellent results, in his evangelistic work. However, no one had yet used the "correspondence course" idea.
In 1938, over station WRAK in Williams- port, Pennsylvania, Dallas Youngs first announced to his radio audience the availability of a radio Bible correspondence course, using the Home Bible Course. His unique efforts were destined to be blessed of God right from the very beginning, for in the first six months of radio advertising approximately seven hundred students enrolled. Two different mailing plans were used either one lesson a week was mailed out, or four lessons once a month. Radio listeners who responded to the announcements and to whom the correspondence lessons were sent were told: "
When you have written out the answers to the test questions, send them to your Bible Commentator, 324 Rural Avenue, Williams- port, Pennsylvania. Do this with each lesson. Your lesson will then be promptly corrected and returned to you. Four lessons will be sent to you each month. You should plan to do at least one lesson a week."
By August 15, 1940, Elder Youngs was able to report in an article in the Review and Her ald of that date:
"We have eighty in our baptismal classes and expect the results to reach well over one hundred. Three branch Sabbath schools have been organized as a result of the correspondence work, and others are possible. Approximately five hundred dollars has been received up to the present time from the students enrolled. This makes the correspondence course practically self-supporting."
In 1940 Fordyce Detamore made his first announcement offering the free Bible correspondence course over WDAF in Kansas City, Missouri. One hundred and fifty enrollments came in the first week, and soon the answered lessons were arriving in an encouraging way. At this time Beaman Senecal in Wichita, Harold Lind- beck in St. Louis, and Robert Whitsett in Oklahoma City, together with Fordyce Detamore, had formed a network called the Bible Auditorium of the Air, which name was first used by Robert Whitsett on his broadcast over KFRV in Columbia, Missouri, in 1935. Arthur Lickey, with his New York broadcast, joined this group a year later. They all offered the correspondence course with success, and soon had thousands of enrollments.
In January, 1942, Fordyce Detamore joined hands with H. M. S. Richards and the King's Heralds quartet, and the correspondence course was for the first time offered on a national network. Shortly after this he wrote the Worldwide Bible Course and also a junior Bible course, both especially for the Voice of Prophecy.
Today in the North American Division three courses are in use: The Faith Bible Course, written exclusively for the Voice of Prophecy by Raymond H. Libby in collaboration with H. M. S. Richards and others; the Prophecy Bible School lessons, written by E. L. Cardey and used by the Southern Union; and the 20th Century Bible Course, written by Arthur E. Lickey, which is used by The Faith for Today telecast and by most of the local conference Bible correspondence schools. Courses are now also available in several other languages besides English. The "correspondence course" idea pioneered by Dallas Youngs has been truly blessed of God.
Not long ago a religious journal carried an article entitled "Facts About Seventh-day Adventists," in which this significant sentence appeared: "The Voice of Prophecy and Faith for Today television programs are traps which get many people into their biggest trap of all, their 20th Century Bible Correspondence Course." We have never thought of these as "traps" but rather as helps to bring people into fellowship with God. But if they are "traps," and through them honest souls can be led into the Bible correspondence course plan, then who knows, maybe the final records of heaven will reveal that this method was truly the "biggest trap of all!"
We Don't Have to Frighten Them!
W. A. TOWNEND Departmental Secretary, South New Zealand Conference
These days we don't have to frighten people first to condition them for the doctrine of the second coming of Christ; they're already scared.
It wasn't that way when I was a boy. Well do I remember our hard-working, earnest evange lists. These men, I imagine, had to comb the news of the day and in other ways search for items that looked as though they might be capable of sobering the mind of an audience, so that the teaching of Christ's imminent second coming might be favorably received.
Back there and not so very far back either it used to appear to me that it was almost standard practice for an evangelist to spend the first fifteen or more minutes of his address in what to my boyish mind seemed to be "scaring the people." I recall that an occasional extra brilliant Adventist preacher used to scare even me!
In the field of warfare those times were the days of trenches. But effective wars are not fought that way now. There are bombers and superbombers, jet fighters, radar, highly mech anized land units, and so on almost ad infinitum. My point is that warfare and combat methods have changed. And those armies that are in to win have changed accordingly.
We preachers of the Advent message are out to win in the battle against sin. It was that way with our noble predecessors; their methods were geared for success. And many of them did succeed gloriously so!
But were they perhaps wiser in their day than some of us are in ours?
Those men were preaching to people who were living in a comfortable kind of world. Why, it was almost a warless era. The public mind had to be stirred, yes, if you like, made afraid, scared and then, into that scene the glorious hope of Christ's second coming and His eternal reign of peace was projected by the evangelist.
Today people everywhere are frightened. It is frightened people who form the bulk of the average audience today. The times in which we are trying to live have conditioned them for our message of hope.
Question: Do we then make the best use of our precious preaching opportunities when we spend fifteen, twenty, or more minutes in presenting many astronomical-size figures about armaments, many quotations from many leaders about our world's perilous state, and much in formation about the A- and H-bombs?
"What subjects are people most interested in?" was a question recently asked of Walter Murdoch, one of Australia's top-line scholars and a penetrating observer of the contemporary scene. For several years Dr. Murdoch has been con ducting a syndicated question-and-answer col umn in several large newspapers.
"Actually, you have set me making a survey of my work, with results that interest me and may interest you," the professor replied to his inquirer, adding that the questions he had re ceived were "infinitely varied." Then the learned quiz master made the interesting observation that "gradually as one peers at this chaos, certain points emerge."
And, quite obviously, these "certain points" are not what the professor expected, for he frankly admits, "What surprises me most in this retrospective survey, is the fact that questions of theology outnumber the rest." Then he states that people are "hungry for a solution of the ultimate problem of existence."
This discovery embarrassed the professor a bit, it seems. He candidly admitted that he was neither a "theologian nor a moral philosopher," and then, just as candidly, he told his questioner, "I would give anything to be able to supply these hungry souls with the certainties for which they crave."
And what are these "certainties" that the minds of men and women everywhere are seek ing? According to the questions received by this university professor the subjects that people are most interested in are: the purpose of human existence, the credibility of the Bible, the nature of Christianity, the origin of conscience, the meaning of sin, what the soul is, whether the soul is immortal, what is wrong with the churches, which church gets nearest to the truth, what truth is.
People today are "hungry for a solution of the ultimate problem of existence," says Professor Murdoch.
Hungry folks are fearful folks. Then why add unduly to their fears in our evangelistic meetings? It would seem that we live in days when we do not need to do this. Rather, we need to provide "a place to hide" not a place that will be discovered only by those who attend our series of meetings till the close or till nearly the end. No.
Let us, by God's grace, study in such a way, and then preach in such a way, that the "place to hide" the One in whom to hide is revealed beyond doubt in the very first meeting and as early as possible in that meeting. Deep down in their hearts people today are longing to find Him. They are frightened people. They need Him who said, "My peace I give unto you."
This is the evangel for today. Basically it is the message of Revelation 14:6-12.
Sunday Night Church Evangelism
R. W. ENGSTROM, Pastor-Evangelist, Washington Conference
Keep the lights burning in our churches every Sunday evening" is a splendid slogan, but it does leave us perplexed at times as to how we may bring a fresh approach to our message. Especially in our large cities, where series of meetings follow one another through the years, we need new angles and subjects in order to keep the people coming and interested.
Having just finished one series in Seattle, and finding ourselves in this very position of looking for new ways of presenting the old truths, my helpers and I worked out a short series for eleven Sunday nights that has worked success fully and that may be of help to fellow pastors who are carrying on the Sunday evening plan.
We chose as our theme "From Eden to Eden," and divided each Sunday evening program into three parts: first, at seven, a Faith for Today kinescope; at seven-thirty the song service and the sermon; and at eight-forty-five one of the ten filmstrips of the Twentieth Century Bible Course No. 2, which covers the Eden-to-Eden theme wonderfully well, tracing through every period or era of earth's history the fundamental truths of the Bible, such as the gospel, law, Sabbath, tithe, priesthood, world message, separation from the world, et cetera.
Each visitor was given, upon entering the meeting, the Twentieth Century lesson for the evening and requested to study it at home during the week and bring in his test sheet the following week. To all who brought in their test sheets faithfully each week, a Christmas gift was given at the final meeting, December 21. We had announced this gift as a twelve-volume set of the New Testament, which may be had in a gift box from the American Bible Society for fifty-five cents.
The main sermons stressed the Eden-to-Eden theme. We began with "When the Atom Kills the Devil" (origin of sin); then "Found the Six Missing Links of Evolution" (creation versus evolution); "The Flood of the Days of Noah"; "The Future Revealed Through the Wonders of the Past" (archeology and the Bible); "Spanning Death's River" (gospel); "Secret of Victorious Living Through the Millenniums" (Hebrews 11); "Christ Blesses the World's Strangest Wedding" (marriage of law and grace in the atonement); "Seven Mysterious Seals and the End of the World" (spanning the Christian centuries); "Coming Twelve World-shaking Events"; "Second Coming and the Millennium"; and finally, our Christmas program and a message on the life of Christ.
We feel especially happy about the fine set of lessons and picture strips of the Twentieth Century Bible Course No. 2, which fit in perfectly with a series like this. This series was intended for those previously interested, but quite a number of entirely new friends have also come and taken their stand for the message.
