Don't Pass Them By!

How can I win more souls? This is a good question, and the church pastor asks himself this question over and over again. He feels that he is using every possible method but always there is the desire to win more souls.

In winning souls to Christ there is no substi­tute for personal work. Good preaching is basic and important, but personal work is basic to good preaching. The pastor has many duties to perform. Finances, promo­tion, preparation of sermons, pastoral calls, hospital visits, and many other duties add to his daily burden. Thus, his time is limited in visiting non-Adventists in the area where he is working. If literature evan­gelists were working in every district in the conference, what a help they could be to the pastors. They could visit every home. Re­member, their purpose is not only to sell literature but also to win souls. When a literature evangelist finds a person who is definitely interested in religion, he can secure the name and address, with other pertinent facts, and pass this on to the pas­tor. Then the pastor, or one of the church elders or a good lay Bible instructor, could follow up this interest with Bible studies. The literature evangelist should accom­pany the pastor, or whoever is to do the mis­sionary work, on the first visit and thus smoothly and diplomatically introduce the interested person to the pastor or Bible instructor for spiritual counsel and guidance. Thus the literature evangelist is engaging in house-to-house evangelism.

In order to carry out this plan, many more members should be recruited and trained. In view of the fact that this plan will help the pastor win more souls, he should do everything he possibly can to co­operate with the publishing department in recruiting and holding more such workers in this area. How can this be done?

1.  He should speak words of encourage­ment to the literature evangelists already in his district, and give them public recog­nition occasionally by inviting them onto the platform. He should speak a word oc­casionally from the pulpit regarding the im­portance of the publishing ministry and encourage his members to give considera­tion to this important work.
2. Once each year the pastor should in­vite the publishing department secretary to a board meeting of the church. The pastor should set forth his burden for the litera­ture ministry and then give the publish­ing secretary a few minutes to explain the great needs in the conference for more workers. The church board members could be asked to submit names of people whom they think would make good literature evangelists. After such a meeting the pub­lishing secretary and the pastor should study these names, and then visit these peo­ple to see if they are really interested.
3. In literature evangelist symposiums many times the expression is heard, "I well remember when Elder Blank shook my hand at the close of the church service and invited me to become a literature evange­list. That set me thinking about this work, and today I am a literature evangelist." Yes, the pastor, who is much better ac­quainted with his church members than the publishing department secretary, should study the possibilities of each of his church members and extend a definite invitation to some of them to enter the liter­ature ministry. This procedure has real impact on the minds of the church mem­bers and will help many of them to give serious consideration to this important branch of God's work.
4. When publishing department rallies or institutes are conducted in the church, the minister should make it a point to at­tend several of the meetings. His presence is not only important to the literature evan-