Each pastor should have a list of baptismal prospects from which he periodically baptizes people into church membership. The methods given here are some that have been successfully used to maintain such a list. As we begin the year 1956 let us restudy these eleven suggestions:
1. Bible Correspondence Course Coverage. The Voice of Prophecy, Faith for Today, or the local conference will furnish without charge sufficient enrollment cards for each church to cover its territory. The pastor's job is to organize his churches to do the work. There is no cheaper or more efficient way to have someone else prepare your converts. A wise pastor works this plan intensively.
3. Branch Sabbath Schools. The Sabbath school is the sleeping giant in our midst. It awakens only when the pastor sees in each teacher and class an evangelistic unit capable of winning souls or conducting branch Sabbath schools. As a shrewd steward of manpower for God, the pastor will recognize in the Sabbath school a tremendous potential as a soul-winning agency.
10. Business Interests. Each year a pastor collects hundreds of dollars from the businessmen of the community. These men do not have to donate to our work, but they do. It must be that God moves upon their hearts to do so.
Why not call upon these men at some time other than when we are asking for funds? It would not only surprise but please them. Take them a book or a magazine. On their birthday anniversary send them a Christian card. If a birth or death occurs, send them an appropriate remembrance. Such friendliness on your part may mean an investigation of the truth you represent.
11. "These Times" and "Signs" Follow-up. Thousands of these excellent magazines are circulated in the conference each year. The names and addresses of the subscribers can be obtained upon request. The readers constitute a fruitful source of interest to every district pastor.
Lest collecting names become a hobby in itself, it should be emphasized again and again that it is not enough to just collect names of interested persons. The names must be followed up. The people must be visited, prayed and studied with. If we fail here, of what value is all other activity? We must make and find time for this phase of our work.
"Teaching the Scriptures, praying in families,—this is the work of an evangelist, and this work is to be mingled with your preaching. If it is omitted, preaching will be, to a great extent, a failure."—Testimonies to Ministers, p. 313.
Thus it would seem that in a moderate-sized district, even if the pastor did not engage in public evangelism as such, he should be able to realize at least twenty-five baptisms yearly from the sources here mentioned. And in larger districts the results would be proportionately larger.
However, such results do not come about by accident. The successful pastor is one who is wholly devoted to his task. Everything of worldly interest is considered secondary if it is considered at all. He plans his district work wisely, organizes carefully, works longer, quits later, infects others with his devotion and zeal, refuses to give up when obstacles are encountered, and stays with the task until the goal is reached.
