Overseas Evangelism Rally

Presiding Chairman: R. A. Anderson

SPEAKERS:

CHAIRMAN: "The Inter-American Divi­sion is a very fast-growing division. It is keeping pace with Africa, and it is a very thrilling division to be in. Brother West­phal, tell us something about the work in your field."

H. J. WESTPHAL: "Elder Anderson, the Inter-American Division is an interesting place because of its tremendous possibili­ties, and because of the response of the people to our missionary work. For the past four years I have carried both the Min­isterial Association and the home mission­ary department, but fortunately we have elected another man so that I can throw myself full force into evangelism.

"One of our men who is leading out with the greatest effect in evangelism in the Inter-American field is H. S. Walters, president of the West Jamaica Conference. If any of you folks ever want to go down to visit him, do so, but be sure to get ready to work. He will go rapidly from one church to another, and you will usually visit six or eight churches every Sabbath. That is what his working force does. He never spares himself. I would like to have him tell you what their program is in the British West Indies."

H. S. WALTERS: "To get the ministry soul-minded, you must get the conference evangelism-minded. So the last week of every year we call in all the church leaders and ministers and set our evangelistic goal. Then every church is given a goal. This is one soul for every five members. The churches that have one hundred members we expect to bring in twenty souls for the year. We publish a bulletin called Sparks of Pentecost, showing the progress of each church. Every church has a goal, every district has a goal, and that means that every minister has a goal. We call a work­ers' meeting once a quarter, and we have a chart showing how each minister is pro­gressing.

"We keep up this spirit of evangelism by conducting district conventions. This year at our convention we aimed at 3,000 deci­sions for Christ. We are expecting a very good harvest of souls, and our baptismal goal is 2,000. At the present time we have one pastor at the most to eleven churches, and by the second week in February every pastor begins an effort. I expect to dedicate a good share of my time the next four years to evangelistic work."

CHAIRMAN: "Well, that is wonderful, isn't it? We are very happy indeed to have Brother Cupertino with us. He is the Min­isterial Association secretary for Southern Europe. Brother Cupertino is Italian and has a very interesting background. Many of you know that our union office in Italy is just across the Tiber from the Vatican. Brother Cupertino has done some won­derful work, not only in Italy, but in other parts of Southern Europe. Fortunately, he is able to speak many languages."

G. CUPERTINO: "Thank you, Brother An­derson, for this opportunity to speak of our work in Italy. Sometimes our workers are alone in districts where 90 per cent are Catholic. A priest in a train talked with one of our workers. 'Why are you down here again?' he asked. 'We are 90 per cent Catholic. There is no room for Protes­tants.'

"One day I was sent to give lectures in Sardinia and to enroll people in the Voice of Prophecy program. When I arrived in this town of 70,000 people there were only three Adventists there—one worker and two lay members. They thought that prob­ably we could secure a hall, and we went to see the man concerned. However, the first thing he said to us was: 'You are Protestants? Nothing doing!' Our efforts to persuade him ivere useless, but I could not think of returning to Italy before I had done something for the town. At last we found a man who would rent us a cinema seating 800. Next I went to the police for permission to preach. But I almost hoped my request would be refused. How could three Adventists in a town of 70,000 fill a hall holding 800 people?

"Miraculously they gave permission, and in three hours I had bargained with a man to make us a poster advertising our meeting. Remember that all this had to be done rapidly and secretly. We had to telegraph to Italy for our one projector. It arrived in time, and we went ahead with our meet­ing. My words of courage to my assistant and the two ushers at the door were most needed by me personally. Despite the protests of a priest outside, we opened the meeting with 1,000 people. God helped us to give that audience a message for these times. We introduced the Voice of Prophecy Bible Correspondence Course and received 500 names. We have learned to use even a single opportunity to do our best for God, and He never disappoints us. Just the same, brethren, the work is hard."

Brother Cupertino mentioned having vis­ited the Vatican and hearing the Pope speak of the second coming of Jesus. Some of the Pope's actual words are given in the following paragraph:

"Come, O Lord Jesus, send thine angel,

O Lord, so that our night will be illuminated like the day.

How many hearts, O Lord, are waiting for Thee,

How many souls are consuming themselves to hasten the day in which only Thou, Lord, wilt live and reign in our hearts.

Come, O Lord Jesus, there are so many signs that your return is not far away."

Now, when our workers go into the homes of Catholic families and speak about the coming of Jesus, they can mention what the Pope himself said, and this gives much strength to their position.

CHAIRMAN: "I can assure you, brethren, that Brother Cupertino is a great preacher, and we thank God for his wonderful leader­ship in his field. Now we will call on George King to report for the Northern European Division."

G. D. KING: "The challenge in Northern Europe is the challenge of our large cities. I think Northern Europe has received a great deal of publicity lately by reason of the glamour of the New Gallery, and we are glad for that. We are glad for the New Gallery, but I think it is well for the brethren to know that there are other large cities in our division as well as London. In fact, in Britain they have a saying:

'What Manchester thinks today, London will think tomorrow.' So when we think of Northern Europe, think of these great cities with literally millions of people, not only in Britain but in Denmark, in Norway, in Sweden, and even in Finland.

"We have two of our brethren here who are meeting this challenge. K. Elias is from Belfast, in the great Catholic country of Ireland, and he has just had the largest baptism in the history of our work in Ire­land. T. Kristensen, the president for East Denmark, is going to tell us about his continuous program of evangelism in Co­penhagen, with a population of more than one million people."

K. ELIAS: "When we received the call to go to Ireland, we just did not want to go. Ireland, you know, has the reputation of being very tough in responding to evan­gelism. Over there the Roman Catholics would never dream of entering a Protes­tant meeting, and the Protestants are even more prejudiced against Adventists. Well, the day we arrived the brethren said: 'Brother, we are glad you have come, but you won't get a hall because the hall owners will not let Adventist evangelists be on their premises.' However, we are not too easily daunted, so we decided to try and see what could be done.

"That very day we met the local manager of the J. Arthur Rank organization over there. We talked in a friendly way for a while, and then very soon came the ques­tion we had been dreading. He said, 'Now, gentlemen, to which denomination do you belong?'

"That is generally the fade-out over there in Ireland. But we looked at him and said, 'We are Seventh-day Adventists.'

"As quick as lightning he came back with, 'I thought you were.'

"We were astonished, and asked, 'What­ever made you think we were Seventh-day Adventists?'

" 'An, I had my office in the New Gallery building at the time that your people were negotiating for the purchase of that fine theater over in London,' was his reply, 'and I was very impressed with the way the negotiations were carried through. I can­not do much to help you,' he continued, 'as I have no theater in Belfast that would suit your meetings, but I have already rung up a friend who is the director of a theater in the city, and he is interested in your proposition.'"

Brother Elias then related how God had prepared the way for us to preach the mes­sage in Ireland. This theater owner had purposely visited the New Gallery in London to learn firsthand about our work. He was impressed with the dignity of our program in that great city. He was a mem­ber of the Order of the British Empire. And now, with the endorsement of the crown, our work was in reputable standing, and succeeded. It was a thrilling report, especially coming out of Ireland, a place so stubbornly resistant to the message all these past years. Evangelism is on the march! Stories of Belfast's converts kept the convention spellbound. Before leaving for General Conference, the evangelist had already baptized fifty-one souls and expects to have another baptism soon. We know the power of the enemy is strong in this great Catholic stronghold, but, thank God, doors are now opening to the Advent mes­sage.

CHAIRMAN: "That is wonderful, Brother Elias. I am sure we are going to remember the work over in Ireland. Now, Brother Kristensen, let us hear about your lovely country."

T. KRISTENSEN: "I Come from the beauti­ful country of Denmark. The first Seventh-day Adventist conference organized outside the United States was there. During the past eighty-one years the Advent message has been proclaimed in my country. I am happy to tell you that our evangelists, be­sides taking care of the churches, hold at least one or two evangelistic campaigns every year. In our field we have discovered that it pays to let the evangelist work in the same city year after year. The advantages are many. I will mention four.

"First, when you advertise meetings every week for three or four years in the same city, people know your name, and they know who you are, and that the Adventist church is still in the city. Second, you have time to establish the new members in the faith. Third, by bringing new members into the church every year, you build a strong church; and fourth, it is good for the evan­gelist himself when he is preaching in the same city three or four years. He has to discover new ways and means of proclaim­ing the message.

"For the past eleven years I have been conference president, and it has been my privilege all these years to conduct at least one evangelistic effort every year. The past four years I have been working in Co­penhagen, our capital city. Copenhagen has 1,300,000 inhabitants, and We have four churches there with 1,400 members. I usu­ally have one young man just out of col­lege as my assistant, and one woman Bible instructor. When the young man has worked with me for one year, I send him out as an evangelist on his own. Thus, in a few years we are able to have a strong group of young evangelists.

"After I had worked in Copenhagen for two years, I received several invitations from different societies and churches to speak at their meetings. A few months ago I was called on the telephone by the pres­ident of the spiritualist church in Copen­hagen. He asked if I would go to his church and preach. I hesitated a little; when he called me the next day I asked him which subject he wanted me to talk about. 'I would like you to talk about the second coming of Jesus Christ,' he said. Of course I went. By the grace of God we had a good meeting, and since that day at least four members of that church have at­tended my meetings in Copenhagen.

"We cannot use the radio, but at least once I had the radio to announce my evan­gelistic meeting. It happened this way. After four weeks of the campaign we had four hundred to five hundred people at­tending the meeting every night. One after­noon, a few hours before the service was to begin, I had a telephone call informing me that I could not have the hall that night. It had been rented about a year be­- fore to another society, and the hall owners had forgotten to tell me. Every evangelist can understand what an awkward situation that was. We prayed about it, but it was too late to announce the postponement of the meeting in the newspaper. Then someone suggested we call the radio station, ex­plain our situation, and ask them to give the information over the air. To our sur­prise they did. They announced my name, the meeting hall, and the postponement of the meeting. A few days later I advertised in the newspaper that the meeting that had been postponed over the radio was going to be held the next Monday night. That night the audience filled the hall and we had to turn many people away.

"The past four years in Copenhagen we baptized 120 people. Yes, public evangelism is the real life even for a conference presi­dent."

CHAIRMAN: "That is just wonderful. Now let us step away from that highly cultured land into another area altogether. Brother Keith, tell us where you come from and the way you do your evangelism."

J. B. KEITH, president of Coral Sea Union Mission: "It is a privilege to be here. While it is true that we are working in some of the primitive countries of the world and do not have the great theaters or the advertising facilities for evangelism that you have over here, nevertheless we carry forward a very aggressive program throughout New Guinea and are having wonderful results. Last year we baptized more than 1,260, and right now we have thousands in our baptismal classes. This all comes from the faithful evangelistic efforts that are being put forth not only by the European missionaries but by many native teachers.

"You may be interested to know how we work out there. How would you go about teaching the message concerning Christ to a people who have never heard His name and know nothing about God? Well, we just take some of the objects of nature with which the people are familiar to il­lustrate the gospel story, and from these simple demonstrations we bring forth prac­tical truths they can understand and grasp, and they grasp them very quickly.

"Another method we are using very ex­tensively among our primitive people is the little gramophone that you see here. These little machines come to us from International Educational Recordings of California. Just a very simple piece of machinery, but we have hundreds of them in the field, and we instruct our teachers and laymen how to use them. Then they go out into the primitive areas, walking many miles over mountain tracks and into deep valleys. Then they reach a village it is not very long before they have a group of people around watching and listening.

"I will never forget the first time that I saw a group of primitive people gather around to watch. When they heard their own language coming out of the little box, their eyes fairly stood out and their bodies became tense; in fact, they were about ready to run—they had never heard any­thing like that before. But gradually the message got over to them, and they re­laxed and we saw the tension go out of their bodies, and soon we saw their heads nodding and the words were spoken, 'This is good, this is good.' Thousands of people who have never heard the name of Christ are hearing the gospel message today in their own language by this simple method that we are using so extensively. Perhaps you would like to hear just how this little machine works. [A record was then played as pictured on front cover].

"After the record has been played we ask the listeners what they heard. 'Did you hear such and such in the message?' They nod their heads; yes, they can grasp it. I believe God has raised up this simple little machine, and under His blessing it is doing a wonderful work among the primitive peo­ple of New Guinea, so much so that thou­sands are flocking into our baptismal classes, preparing to study further and to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their per­sonal Saviour. We are living in a very thrill­ing mission field, and the workers there are full of enthusiasm as they go forth with the gospel message over the moun­tain trails, bringing the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to thou­sands."

CHAIRMAN: "We also have here Kila Ga­lama, president of the Western Papuan Mission, who is well known to you by now, and I am sure you would like to hear a word or two from him. He works down on the coast of Papua, and they are using these little machines down there too. How­ever, they often gather the people together into halls and other places, where they speak their own language fluently."

IOLA GALAMA: "Elder Keith has just told you how we go out with these little ma­chines. I am going to tell you the way we went out to the heathen people without the machines. I went to work in one of the districts, and one day I was visiting some of the villages where they had never heard the name of Jesus from a missionary be­fore. It was a very new place. Government officials had been there but no missionary. The day we arrived we heard that there was fighting between that village and the other village, and the people told us to leave and go back where we came from. I told them that I was going to tell them something more, but they did not want to hear. Then I opened the Picture Roll to show them. As I was holding it a man came by my side and saw the different pictures. He began to ask me questions: 'Who is this? What is he doing?' and so on. 'This is Abraham and the two angels.' We turned to another picture.

"Then the other people became inter­ested and said, 'Well, let us have this man come and sit down, and let us call all the people to come and see the pictures. Thus we had a meeting by showing them the Picture Roll. Yes, the Picture Roll, as well as the little machine, makes the people want to stay and listen. Both are opening the way of salvation to these heathen peo­ple."

CHAIRMAN: "This interesting little device may look like a toy, but it is one of the means being used for evangelism and the spreading of the gospel in these islands. They have thirty lessons translated into the native tongue. They cover the gospel in a simple way and thus bring these people a knowledge of the Word of God. By the way, John Ford is the one who is respon­sible for the manufacture of the machine and records. This is a good work and filling a great need."

ANDREW FARTHING, evangelist in South India, was evangelizing in the city of Guntur. This is a Lutheran stronghold, and one of its prominent ministers had preached a sermon to try to prove that Sunday was the Sabbath. However, he remained friendly toward our Seventh-day Adventist workers and admitted: "Of course, Seventh-day Adventists are right, for Saturday is the Sabbath. We keep Sunday because this custom began in the early church."

The evangelistic team made friends with the people of all denominations in this city, and this had its rewards. On the opening night of the meetings an anti-Christian organization attempted to stone our workers, but the Lutherans, Baptists, and Pentecostals came to their rescue. Ad­vising the evangelist to look after the safety of his family, they promised to protect the tent. On another occasion fifty leading Lutherans asked Brother Farthing to repeat his Sabbath lecture. About the same time a petition to O. O. Mattison, division pres­ident, urged that Adventists consider sta­tioning one of their workers permanently in Guntur. They had become friendly to­ward our work.

Elder Farthing suggested that a public baptism held early in the series of meet­ings provides excellent advertising when conducted in a dignified, efficient manner. The baptism of non-Adventists-----those newly come to the faith—stirs up a spirit of inquiry and is profitable for our evan­gelism.

An interesting experience was then re­lated when the Studebaker truck used in Brother Farthing's work failed right in the middle of a muddy stream. Every effort to drive through had failed. While the evan­gelist struggled with the truck, his children asked God to send the angels to get the truck out of the mud. What happened? Forty people from a nearby village ap­peared and offered their services. They lifted the truck out of the muddy river bed and refused any pay for their friendly, helpful service. God of ten intervened to help during these evangelistic meetings, which were very successful.

CHAIRMAN: "We are so sorry to have to cut these men down so much in time, but we cannot avoid it. We are glad to have a few folks from down under, and I just want to let Brother McCutcheon bring you a greeting concerning the work over there in the New Hebrides."

O.D. MCCUTCHEON: "I am very happy to bring you greetings from the New Heb­rides Mission. One in every twenty of the population of the New Hebrides is a Sev­enth-day Adventist. We have different methods of winning souls, but one of them is to sell many copies of our Church Hym­nal to the people in the villages. They do not know the hymns, so when they see our ships anchored off the beach, they send out their canoes after dark and ask us to come ashore and teach them how to sing the hymns out of the Church Hymnal. We do this and make good Adventists out of these people."

CHAIRMAN: "Well, what a wonderful method! That is singing evangelism, isn't it? Brother Coltheart, our next speaker, is from New Zealand. We are delighted to have him here and he will introduce some of the men from down under."

J. F. COLTHEART: "While I am speaking I would like Brother Gilmore to come for­ward. He is our campaign manager. Down there in Australasia our tempo is set ac­cording to the evangelistic pattern. I would like to give you a picture of our all-out evangelism, because in some aspects it seems to be a little different from what we see in this country.

"It begins with our conference pres­ident, who is very evangelistic-minded. As Brother Ratcliffe told you the other night, evangelism is just about our whole existence. If a man is chosen to do just pastoral work, he is likely to ask the con­ference president: 'What is wrong with me? Are you going to drop me next year?' Yes, we just live for evangelism, and we are achieving results in our work. How­ever, we have something to learn from you good folks in North America along the line of lay evangelism. We do not seem to be doing quite as much of that as you do, and perhaps we should. Only as the whole church unites in action will the work be finished.

"I did a little experimenting myself about thirteen years ago. I was searching around for some new approach for evan­gelism. Subjects such as Bible lands, arche­ology and the Bible, suggested a new ap­proach. We advertised a meeting, and three conference evangelists said to me, 'You won't get anybody out because Pastor So­and-So tried that approach here five years ago, and it just doesn't work.' Well, I am happy to say that approach did work, and it has since been used by many of our men. I use the title 'Dead Men Do Tell Tales,' a title I copied from Elder Anderson, who used it in his London campaign about twenty years ago, though not in connec­tion with archeology and the Bible, but with the lost prophetic witnesses down through the ages. We have gathered huge crowds with that title.

"We usually run our campaigns for a whole year. Maybe we should try some­thing a little shorter, but in the long cam­paign the people get plenty of indoctrina­tion. During this time we have given them at least eighty meetings. Then our Bible instructors enter the home and give prob­ably thirty to forty Bible studies there. The person is then enrolled in a Bible corre­spondence course, and receives literature every week. We think that is pretty good indoctrination. As a result, our apostasies are not very high, and we feel proud of that.

"Although we have fewer children from academies to call on for baptism and fewer young Adventists than you do here, yet we have some very wonderful baptisms. We work really hard and do intensive Bible work. I personally visit hundreds of people a month and give fifty, sixty, or seventy Bible studies, as well as preach three or four times a week and organize a team. We do our own painting of signs, silk-screening, and slide work. We do not have any agen­cies such as you have here for doing these things.

"This last year we were sent to Welling­ton, the capital of New Zealand, tradition­ally an evangelist's graveyard. However, we went in there and advertised two sessions. During the week the telephone hardly stopped ringing, so many people wanted reservations, and we were obliged to put on a third session. Eight hundred people came along to that third meeting. We had 3,600 reservation names and addresses as a basis on which to work.

"We have given up a lot of the hand-billing ideas and the heavy radio advertis­ing, and even heavy newspaper advertis­ing. We build up that initial audience with reservations that we mail out to the people during the week. We believe this is a more effective way of advertising, and a great deal cheaper. I would like to say right here that if we could stir up more evangelistic fervor in all the countries of the world, we would see wonderful results."

R. W. HOWES: "We are very happy to bring you the greetings of the workers of the South New Zealand Conference. New Zealand is a favored country. We have very little unemployment, plenty of food, good homes, and everything we need. But, as in some other countries, agencies are working to curtail our efforts to preach the gospel we love. And so we feel the urgency of the hour.

"Dr. E. Heppenstall recently visited our Australasian Division, where he took part in conducting a Seminary extension school. Speaking of the evangelists and workers of that division, he said that here were 'men fresh from the firing line of some of the most dynamic missionary evangelistic areas in the world,' and they 'bring an expect­ancy and a vibrancy that brooks neither dry formalism nor mediocrity.' The evan­gelistic record of the Australasian Division is an enviable one, and yet we must all sense the urgency of the hour. The work we might have done in times of ease we will have to do in difficult times. And those difficult times are not far away. Someday soon in the glorious kingdom of God we will meet those for whom we have labored and whom we have helped win to the message of God. Let us hasten that day."

CHAIRMAN: "Yes, they are real workers down there in New Zealand. Brother Colt-heart just told me that he and Brother Gil­more leave here tomorrow, and one week from now they will be plunged right into a big evangelistic campaign. That is the kind of program they carry down there. We thank God for such men.

"Well, we have come to the closing mo­ments of this meeting and, in fact, of all of the Ministerial convention. I want now to pay a tribute to one of the members of our staff who has done excellent service. He was a real brother with us, carrying big bur­dens, but now he is no more than a brother-in-law! Brother Buckwalter has done a tre­mendous amount of work for us, and we can never really repay him for that. But unfortunately the brethren picked him right out of our group, and, as you know, he has been called to head the important Religious Liberty Department. We were urged not to put too much pressure to hold him because it was felt he was definitely needed there. So we did what we were told and he did what he was encouraged to do. And so we lost a very good man. Brother Buckwalter, before you officially leave us, we want you to say a few words if you will."

J. A. BUCKWALTER: "Thank you, Brother Anderson. I want to say the last fifteen months have been a time of real pleasure and profit to me personally, to associate with those in the Ministerial Association, and to have the privilege of working in this great cause. To my mind the ministry is the most important phase of all our work. It is a department of destiny if there ever was one, and I know that Elder Fearing who now takes my place on the staff will add strength to it. I want to' pay a tribute to all the people in the department with whom I have worked. They have helped me and inspired me and given me much encouragement in the work. While my body is taken out of the department, my heart is still with the cause there. When the breth­ren asked me to accept my new responsibili­ties I felt I could not refuse. But to all of you who labor in the Ministerial Associa­tion I say: 'God richly bless you, and may we make our rendezvous with destiny in the battle for the souls and minds of men and women, to win them to the Prince of Peace, and to prepare them for the coming kingdom of God.' This is my prayer for each of you."

CHAIRMAN: "Thank you, Brother Buck-waiter. And while we say good-by to Brother Buckwalter, we are also eager to say a word of welcome to the one who is joining our staff. Brother Andrew Fearing is a man of real breadth of experience and vision, and the Lord has greatly blessed him in his ministry. Let me say, Brother Fearing, we are glad that the Lord has called you to serve with us, and we want to assure you that we are going to do every­thing we can to make it possible for you to give the broadest and the most comprehen­sive service to the ministry of the Advent Movement."

A. C. FEARING: "Thank you. It is indeed a privilege to be associated with the min­istry of this great movement, and I am wondering, before I say anything more, if you would like to give a tribute to the man who for the past fifteen months has been working along with Brethren Anderson, Schubert, Cleveland, and Sister Kleuser in the production of THE MINISTRY. As I think of .the inspiration I have received while reading it, and all the material in my files I have gathered from it, I feel that I, per­sonally, would like to say: 'Thank you, Brother Buckwalter, we have deeply appre­ciated your work!'

"The Lord has told us that we, as minis­ters, are the living link between heaven and earth for mankind. I pray that God will make us all clean instruments through which His Spirit will flow; make us men of power and inspiration; men who can lift; men who can put their arms around one another to encourage one another. I think Moses has the most wonderful title pos­sible for one to obtain: 'Moses, the servant of God.' That is the title I wish for myself, and I know all of you desire the same. It is the most coveted decoration in all the world. May God bless you all as you go to your various fields of labor, and I hope it will not be too long before I will have an opportunity to meet you in your institutes and workers' meetings in the many fields from which you have come."