Radio Bible Marking in Georgia

On October 21, 1963, the Voice of Prophecy radio group was on its way to Georgia, to follow up the soul-winning thrust made by the Voice of Prophecy daily broad­cast.

For the past year and a half the daily broadcast has been aired over seven local stations in the areas of Atlanta and Baxley, Georgia. Inserted in the second six-month series was an eight-week Bible-marking program, which had been prepared especially for this campaign by my father. Bibles were made available for the radio listener who wanted to participate in this intriguing ra­dio Bible-marking program.

A telephone-answering service was or­ganized and manned by conference office workers and ministers' wives. The response was surprising. Many were participating in this marking program and were asking for the Bibles. As various Bible subjects were discussed and studied from day to day, the Bible references were referred to by page number as well as by Scripture text. Those receiving a Friendship Bible were also sent the outlines of the various Bible topics from week to week.

At first, members of the churches in Atlanta delivered these Friendship Bibles in person, but the demand soon become so great that Bibles had to be sent by mail.

A free picture of Christ was offered to each person who had marked at least twenty of the subjects that had been cov­ered on the daily Voice of Prophecy Bible-marking program. In the Atlanta and Bax­ley areas alone, more than 3,000 took part.

As a result of hearing the Voice of Proph­ecy every day for more than a year, and the added boost of the radio Bible Marking Plan, we found a completely different at­mosphere than we had expected and have met in times past. There are areas in the United States where the name Seventh-day Ad­ventist is either totally strange to people or is very unpopular, and when evangelistic teams enter these areas they are immediately up against walls of prejudice. We have found that as a result of the im­pact of the daily Voice of Prophecy broad­cast series the attitudes of communities are surprisingly different. Even though people know that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is sponsoring the Voice of Proph­ecy, the broadcast itself becomes a buffer to soften the blow with many of these peo­ple.

The Bible Marking Plan uplifts the Holy Scriptures and sustains the interest of the listener in a unique and intriguing way, and prepares the recipient for further Bi­ble study and enrollment in one of the correspondence courses.

Both Voice of Prophecy groups that were participating in this experiment had visitation schedules during the three-week crusade in Atlanta and Baxley. We found in these personal contacts people with a great yearning to know what the Bible actually says and also possessing an aware­ness of the religious and political changes coming in the world. We feel that this means of reaching people by way of the daily radio broadcast with the use of the Bible Marking Plan is God ordained.

He reached the hearts of the people by going among them as one who desired their good. He sought them in the public streets, in private houses, on the boats, in the synagogue, by the shores of the lake, and at the marriage feast. He met them at their daily vocations, and manifested an interest in their secular affairs. He carried His instruction into the household, bringing families in their own homes under the influence of His divine presence.—The Desire of Ages, p. 151.

The Voice of Prophecy daily broadcast does just this. It reaches the people where they are. There are many areas that have no television, and radio is the daily chan­nel of communication from the outside world. In areas such as this, the people in nearly all homes listen to their own local station on their radios. When the Voice of Prophecy daily broadcast continues daily for months, people begin to talk to their friends and neighbors about the broadcast and the good things that they are learning, and we have found that after the Voice of Prophecy daily broadcast has become estab­lished in a town or area, many families come to feel that this program fills a daily need. We found many people in these towns and communities who were hearing the Voice of Prophecy broadcast each day, and were using the sermons in their Bible study groups and in their churches. Many pastors had enrolled their church mem­bers in the Bible course, and many were participating in the radio Bible-marking class. As a result it was not so difficult for these people to attend meetings and have Bible studies in their homes as it would have been if we or some other evangelistic team had gone into these areas with no previous preparation.

Elder A. C. McKee, formerly president of the Georgia-Cumberland Conference, said this about the impact of the daily Voice of Prophecy series in his field:

The Voice of Prophecy program has brought great blessing as a soul-winning agency in Georgia-Cumberland. We feel the effectiveness of the pro­gram has been greatly increased with the intro­duction of the daily broadcast and the Bible Mark­ing Plan.

We were fortunate in having the Voice of Proph­ecy groups personally conduct a three-week decision series of meetings in two areas of our conference recently.

Under the sponsorship of the Adventist churches of greater Atlanta, Elder H. M. S. Richards, Sr., and the King's Heralds quartet conducted a city­wide crusade October 26 to November 17. During this same period, Elder Harold Richards, Del Delker, and Brad Braley, conducted a crusade in the very heart of the dark-county area of south Georgia —in that section where it has seemed our message has made little impression in past years.

We were greatly cheered by the outstanding re­ception given the groups in both areas. The many requests for personal appearances placed the Voice of Prophecy in the "limelight," and the attendance was excellent for both meetings. How thrilling it was to see the large Atlanta auditorium packed to capacity, even on the closing night of the series, and a large number indicate their decision for Christ and His message of truth.

It would be difficult to express the joy that was felt in seeing a new church organized at the close of the meetings in south Georgia. As the personnel of radio stations carrying the broadcast were visited and businessmen of influence were interviewed, we could detect a very warm, spiritual response and a kindly attitude toward the Adventist Church, which had not been previously felt in this area.

The baptisms to date are but the beginning of the decisions that will ultimately result from these meetings. People of this section of the coun­try are known to be more reluctant in making de­cisions. Therefore, the three-week series could not fully reap the harvest.

A careful follow-up program is being conducted in both areas. Many of the finest class of people are deeply impressed with the message, and we con­fidently expect a large number of these will yet become members of the remnant church.

We are deeply grateful to Elders Richards, and those associated with them in these meetings, and for the might) influence of the Voice of Prophecy broadcasts in the Georgia-Cumberland Conference.

These daily broadcasts not only reach the nonchurch person and the person who is not satisfied with his Christian experience but also the backsliders.

I was in my motel room one night, pre­paring for the evening meeting, when I heard a knock at my door. I opened it and found a man standing in the doorway whom I had never met before. I asked him if I could be of help to him and he said, "Yes, Pastor Richards, I want to be bap­tized."

I invited him into my room and he poured out his heart, telling me that as a boy he had been a Seventh-day Adventist church member, but for thirty-five years had been away from God and out of the church, but lately had been hearing the daily broadcasts. He lived in a town fifty miles from where we were holding the meetings. There were no Seventh-day Ad­ventist church members there. I had a wonderful visit with him, and we prayed together. He gave his heart completely to the Lord Jesus and was baptized later on. He is the only church member that we have in that town now, but his wife is hav­ing Bible studies and will be joining him. This will be the beginning of the work in his town there in Georgia.

Radio plays a completely different role from what it used to play when the Voice of Prophecy first went coast to coast. Since the advent of television, almost all major programing is planned on a daily basis. Much of today's radio is geared to people who are present at a time and place where television is not available, such as during work hours in the shop and in the home, or while traveling to and from work in a car. So the sermon topics of the Voice of Prophecy daily broadcasts are presented in a logical order, much like an evangelistic series. By holding the people's attention day after day, they make an indelible im­pact on the mind and hearts of the listen­ers, sowing the seed, and preparing the minds for the harvest work of an evan­gelist.

The opportunities in using this type of evangelistic tool are limitless. Already the daily broadcasts have been released in Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Tennessee, Washington, and Wyoming.