Reaching the Masses

How should we go about reaching the masses?

A panel discussion by various authors.

Presiding Chairman: L. E. Lenheim

Panel Personnel:

IntroductionE. J. Folkenberg

ModeratorTheodore Carcich

R. A. Anderson

W. E. Murray

V. G. Anderson

J. L. Shuler

G. Cupertino

E. C. Ward

F. W. Detamore

R. S. Watts

M. L. Mills

R. M. Whitsett

MODERATOR: "Our particular discussion this opening session is 'Reaching the Masses.' God's last message of mercy is to go to every nation, kindred, tongue, and peo­ple, and we have been told that a voice must go forth to arouse the nations. How shall we do it? What methods, what ways, what procedures, can we employ? E. J. Fol­kenberg, who has just returned from the New Gallery in London, will introduce the subject. By the way, Brother Folkenberg is now taking up the work in the New York Center in New York City. We know this subject is on his heart."

E. J. FOLKENBERG: "It seems almost pre­sumptuous to be talking here this morn­ing about reaching the masses because there are so many in the mass and so few of us, relatively speaking. Yet the populace is to be reached, and God will enable us to do it. We cannot be content with the old methods of yesterday—we must devise ways and means that fit today's thinking. We often sing, 'Change and decay in all around I see,' and that is exactly the kind of world in which we live—a changing, decaying world.

"Potatoes will always be potatoes, but there are some new ways of serving them. Truth does not change, but methods of pre­senting it change with the changing times. I believe we as a people need the spirit of experimentation. Knowledge is constantly reaching new frontiers. It takes a good deal of courage to step out and try something different.

"You know the moods of cities change almost overnight. To illustrate this fact: Some time ago in London we sent out a piece of direct mail advertising, 'The Secret of Personal Happiness.' This went directly to about 12,000 homes. We put it on good paper. Each envelope was addressed by hand and sent out by first-class mail. As a result about 600 new people came to the meeting. Four months later we decided to use exactly the same subject, the same kind of paper, the same kind of stamp on the envelope, the same kind of envelope, hand addressed, only sent right next door to the previous section. The first direct mail prop­osition brought us in 600 non-Adventists; the second time we sent it out, it brought us in 150. Nothing was changed except the date. Why the difference? Simply because the mood of that great city had changed. This is made possible because of the sys­tems of mass communications, television, and radio. The majority were not interested in the 'Secret of Personal Happiness,' whereas just a few weeks before, they were.

"We have some great preachers in our midst. We have some of them right here on the platform—men who have molded pub­lic opinion as far as our ministry is con­cerned, men who have worked out a phi­losophy of evangelism on their knees with an open Bible before them, who have worked night and day to perfect a method that will work for them. But I think they would be the first ones to tell us that their methods do not work equally well in every place for every man. These men would be the first ones to tell us that we should not be reflectors of their thoughts. We ought to be individual thinkers; we ought to be developing our own program, perhaps us­ing some of the good ideas of others, yet not being imitators.

"It takes something large to capture the mind of the masses. We recognize it is much easier to take a town of 10,000 than it is to take a city of 10 million. But we must think and act in a large way even for small towns. For example, when we came to the little town of Turlock, California, we tried the ticket idea. We took an auditorium that would seat 3,000 people—that was a third of the town. I maintain that when we start out large and take the biggest place in the vicinity, there is a psychological re­action that grips the minds of the people. They think, 'This must be big or it wouldn't be in the biggest hall.' When you put an ad in the newspaper, make it worthwhile. And then the subconscious reaction is: 'This is something unusual; I want to hear this subject.' We found it worked. In this little town of Turlock, population 10,­000, we had more than 3,000 out to the meeting. Cars were jammed bumper to bumper right down the main street of the town because they thought something big was going on.

"That philosophy can be carried right through because it is fundamental in the thinking of people. We have been specifi­cally counseled that extraordinary efforts are needed in these days to reach the masses. Extraordinary efforts to capture the atten­tion of the people! I don't mean garish efforts; I don't mean spectacular efforts that border on the cheap and the sensational. But, brethren, the world is making extraor­dinary efforts and the church is compelled to think of extraordinary methods for get­ting God's message to man.

"Then, when we reach them, how are we going to keep them? Not by a tame, lifeless message. D. L. Moody was on fire. He was never ordained, he was a lay preacher, but he believed in his message with all his heart and the people knew that he believed it. He was rather rough with the King's English. Read his unabridged ser­mons and you will realize that. But the great of the world came to hear this man preach because he was on fire, and he be­lieved what he said. The same results will be ours when we burn for the Lord.

"Now, who are the masses for whom we are aiming? The masses in England are those who do not go to church, and we pre­sume it is largely the same around the world. It is easier to preach to church mem­bers than to men who do not know God.

"Let me show you something. This is a poster we used in the underground, or sub­ways. Notice how it reads: 'Good God—Bad World. Why?' Now this we felt would attract the religious person's attention, and it did. We received an essentially religious audience. However, we wanted to aim at something else—the irreligious audience. Fifty per cent of the people in Great Brit­ain follow the horoscope every day, accord­ing to census. Therefore, we aimed from a different angle. Here is the other poster: 'Know Your Future—but There Is a Better Way to Know Your Future.' This was printed over the picture of the horoscope, the crystal ball, and the seance. What hap­pened that night? We had an auditorium full of starry-eyed crystal-gazers. We wanted them. Why? We had chosen the story of a dream that a king had, very interesting to-those who are interested in dreams. They learned that the astrologers and the sooth­sayers were of no value in understanding the dream. However, there is a God in heaven who told the answer. This is a bet­ter way to know your future. Brethren and sisters, we baptized many of those good folk. They found there was a way not only to know their future but to know the God who can direct their future.

"We should think very seriously of aim­ing at the most difficult areas of human thought and life. Those are the people who do not go to church, who walk the streets disillusioned with religion—at least, many of them—atheists, infidels, agnostics, people who perhaps once called themselves Chris­tians, but do not work at it now. We have a tremendous task in front of us, as every single one of us knows.

"Standing in Westminster Abbey before the tomb of David Livingstone, one can read the secret of Livingstone's life. 'Pray as though it depended all upon God, then I must work as though it depended all upon me.' What an unspeakable challenge is be­fore us today!"

MODERATOR: "What can be done for the big cities like Chicago, New York, London, Rome, Singapore, as well as the small towns that are dotted throughout all the land? How can the masses be reached, main­tained, and held?"

R. M. Whitsett answered his question by observing that we need to use every skill possible in our evangelistic business. Our audiences may be small these days, but we can build them. He described how, among other things, he used pictures for illustra­tions on one side of his platform, and black light on the other side. He stood in the mid­dle with a floodlight upon himself. He ex­plained that he liked the lights partially dimmed in the auditorium. This he ob­served, "attracts the masses and goes a long way toward holding the attention." In his evangelistic program he also used souvenirs and gift awards to increase attendance.

The MODERATOR wished to know if there was not something that could be done to lay the right kind of groundwork before the first sermon was preached. Are there not methods that an evangelist can use by which he may have hundreds, yes, thou­sands, of advance reservations?

J. L. SHULER affirmed that one of the methods he has used successfully in laying a good groundwork for his meetings, was to unite the church members in obtaining sev­eral thousand enrollments in the Bible cor­respondence course. He goes into a city six or eight weeks beforehand. In one place he had more than 4,000 people enrolled before the first sermon was ever given. They had already received four or five lessons and their interest in Bible study was already aroused when the services began. This group forms a good nucleus for the open­ing night.

A week before the meetings were to open a letter was written to these students telling of the great mass meeting and of the inter­esting subject that was to be presented. They were told that a certain section of seats had been reserved for them and all they needed to do to secure one was to tele­phone or write. This was also advertised in the newspapers. Interested people, doctors' patients, and so forth, also received the letter inviting them to request reserved seats.

M. L. MILLS stressed the significance of good preaching. It is still God's chosen method of reaching the masses. One per­son will tell another that his heart was warmed, that he received something of value. And he will say, "You must come and hear these great Bible messages."

E. J. FOLKENBERG reminded US that we should not forget the mass media of com­munications by way of radio and television.

H. E METCALF, from the audience, told how he used radio almost entirely for the winning of friends. A month or two before the evangelistic meeting begins, he makes use of a daily, early-morning radio pro­gram.

Other men emphasized that the radio was a very effective means of advertising their meetings. Our attention was brought to the fact that we should have sermons of an unusual nature, messages that are out of the ordinary, timely topics. Some of the panel felt that conversion sermons, sermons that arouse a desire, create an interest in the Bible, were of vital importance for the beginning of an evangelistic series.

V. G. ANDERSON listed six ways that he felt would be good in reaching the masses:

1.   Utilizing our laymen. We reached half of the United States with a tract recently. Why cannot we do that for our evangelis­tic meetings?
2.   Utilizing our colporteur interests. He informed us that we reach one fifth of the United States with our colporteur work ev­ery year.
3.   Newspapers.
4.  Bible correspondence school. His ex­ample of this potential was the Southern Union Bible School, which has enrolled three quarters of a million since it began a few years ago.
5.     Radio—capitalizing on the local inter­ests of the local broadcaster and also that of the Voice of Prophecy.
6.    Television. His illustration of this was the recent It Is Written television program presented in the city of Washington, D.C., for nine months. "I think that Washington knows more about Seventh-day Adventists today than they ever did in all of their lives because of this program. When George Vandeman opened his first meeting he had about 3,000 viewers the first night. People have written in for the Bible lessons from this one television program from 350 post offices; 15,000 enrolled for these lessons." That surely is one method of arresting the attention of the masses. All six of these items put together would indeed make an impact on any great city or community.

RALPH WATTS told how much he appre­ciated hearing of all this work in the large city efforts, but he was thinking of the worker in the smaller cities and smaller dis­tricts, even beyond the reach of radio and television. We shared the warmth of his happiness as he told us how last year 8,962 souls had been baptized in one of their un­ions in the central part of Africa. He said there is no secret magic about it; they just followed the plain instruction that had been given to Seventh-day Adventists through the messenger of the Lord—link­ing up our lay workers with the ministry.

We cannot overlook the fact that great masses of population are in the rural areas. They are scattered about in small towns and cities of from 50,000 to 100,000 popula­tion. One conference recently launched a program for its rural people by putting on television programs that will blanket the entire rural areas of the State. That is reaching the masses even though it is in small groups.

F. W. DETAMORE presented the matter of keeping the crowd. His evangelistic company likes to give special awards for certain accomplishments. He feels that he can in­crease his attendance anywhere from 50 to 100 per cent in one night by this plan. He cuts 'down on his advertising expense and uses some of the money to procure some beautiful pictures. A picture is given to each individual who brings a new friend on a certain night. Also he has a picture for the friend who is brought to the meetings. Next time he offers a phonograph record by his singing evangelist to each person who brings three friends. In his third week he offers a beautiful white Bible to each one who brings four new friends. These must be new friends. He keeps reaching out, ex­panding, swelling. "We've never found any­thing like it," says the evangelist. "Now for steady attendance," he continued, "we give a book of the week. If a man comes six nights out of seven, he gets a book free."

H. E. METCALF plans to begin something in his next campaign that he has not used before. He reminds us of a well-known cereal company that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars reaching people through giving little gifts to children. The manufacturers put marbles, whistles, and various things in the cereal boxes. He plans in his next campaign to give a special gift to the boys and girls who attend fifteen out of the twenty-two nights. Of course, mother or father, or both, will come with the children.

G. CUPERTINO, from Southern Europe, gave us a winsome smile and then apolo­gized for his poor English. He explained how in his division he had to deal with eighteen main languages. "If I could speak to you in Italian or French, it would be bet­ter." In Southern Europe the men use all kinds of methods. If they cannot have a hall or a church, they will get permission to use something else. Great joy filled his countenance as he enthusiastically told how last year 9,618 souls were baptized. "All this inspiration has given us courage. Con­tinue to pray for our work."

Many of the men are finding that Satur­day night is an excellent night for a cam­paign. Others are holding meetings in dif­ferent places simultaneously; even though some of them are small, they are reaching many people. One man reported that he was having good success with a Sunday morning service; another, at four o'clock Sunday afternoon, with his smallest crowd being around 1,100, his largest 1,600. One brother urged that a plan be devised whereby evangelists all over the world might be able to know how best to cooper­ate with the already existing agencies that are reaching the masses, such as television, colporteurs, radio, correspondence courses, advertising, and so forth. It would be well for a plan to be worked out whereby all these avenues of communication could be correlated into a successful program.

R. A. ANDERSON wished that the local conferences could have a classification of all the media that had been used for the last ten years so that when an evangelist came into a city he could know exactly what had happened and would have a source of names and interests that would be of great value. The evangelist then would be able to channel his appeals to persons who have already been awakened to a love of the Bible.

As the men on the panel talked back and forth, we were made conscious of the fact that we have a great work to do and a short time in which to do it. God would reward our great faith and sacrifice if we were but willing to put ourselves and our plans at His feet. It was voiced that one of the secrets of the success of the evangelistic campaign in Washington recently was that more than 1,200 lay members went out week after week, visiting homes in the vicinity. Union, local conference, and Seminary workers joined the laymen in this work. It did some­thing for the hearts of our own people who were praying and working for the cam­paign.

We learned that in some of our overseas divisions, window posters have proved very successful, followed by newspaper advertis­ing. Indonesia is an example. It is quite evident that a man has to know his field, its perspective and background, and the psy­chology of the people for whom he is to labor. Then with united counsel and the blessing of God, he must step forward in faith to accomplish the work.

In closing, the moderator suggested that although it is obvious that we need a lot of ocean liners in this program, let us not for­get the tugboats. If you happen to be a tug­boat, do not try to be an ocean liner, for God needs good tugboats and plenty of them. "The time has come when, as never before, Seventh-day Adventists are to arise and shine, because their light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon them." —Evangelism, p. 36.


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A panel discussion by various authors.

October 1958

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