STEPPING through the foam of the shore-break on the beach at Kovalam in South India, I looked to my right and saw about a hundred men struggling with something in the surf. What was it? Divided into two groups, they were hauling in an extremely long seine net.
My mind went back to childhood when I too had rowed the net out through the beating waves and then joined my father and brother as we dragged it in. Not until the last moments could you know what had been caught in the net. Every haul felt heavy, but sometimes the net was empty and sometimes loaded with hundreds of fish.
It was this way for the Indian fishermen. Excitedly they gathered around their catch. Eagerly they divided it among themselves. Then I saw them carefully folding the net as they prepared for a second sweep of the ocean shelf.
Jesus said, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." WThat the church needs more than anything else is successful net work. The opportunities for gathering a great harvest of souls are greater today than ever before.
Consider the net that we spread through radio and television alone. Crisscrossing the airwaves of the nations are more than three thousand programs each week. True, this does not equal what we should be doing. We only touch the fringes of opportunities. But the efforts are considerable in relation to our means and in comparison with other churches.
Think of H. M. S. Richards and his son, of William A. Fagal, and George E. Vandeman, of our overseas and foreign-language broadcasts. Think of the vast expenditures of money in these programs. Think of what you are doing or would like to do. Sure, we need a bigger, stronger, larger net; but even more than this, we need someone to haul in the gospel net successfully, producing a great catch of souls from the net work of our programming.
The Secret of Success
"We were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. ... For labouring day and night, be cause we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God" (1 Thess. 2:9).
Commit yourself personally to a soulwinning program for individuals. "Preach ing will not do the work that needs to be clone. Angels of God attend you to the dwellings of those you visit. This work can not be done by proxy. Money lent or given will not accomplish it. Sermons will not do it. By visiting the people, talking, praying, sympathizing with them, you will win hearts."— Testimonies, vol. 9, p. 41.
Fortunately our church has been largely protected from the errors that trap so many broadcasters and preachers. All too often they feel that preaching the Word suffices. If this were true, then we could quickly finish the work of God by public preaching and broadcasting. But we believe that man must make an individual, personal decision.
The work of the local broadcaster is not done when he has read his script. The Voice of Prophecy and Faith for Today would touch few lives were it not for the faithful work of follow-up done by pastors and laymen. "In our work, individual effort will accomplish much more than can be estimated. It is for the want of this that souls are perishing."—Gospel Workers, p. 184. (Italics supplied.)
The Local Pastor and the National Broadcast
Wise use of existing programs of superb technical quality and formidable prestige can add greatly to a pastor's soul-winning program. Not only can our syndicated national broadcasts provide you with grade A interests but you can yourself enrich and increase the results from these programs. Here are some of the ways you can work to win more souls.
1. A continuous Bible correspondence course enrollment program. Nothing in the missionary calendar for your church should stand in the way of regular concerted drives for applications to these courses. While you sleep, while your other programs are coming and going, the mailman is your evangelist. The same territory can be worked year after year, always with productive results, because of the changing population and their differing personal circumstances.
2. Audience building. All our national broadcasts have attractive materials avail able for newspaper and member distribution that will increase audiences.
3. Reaping crusades. Any area where Faith for Today or the Voice of Prophecy has been on the air for some time is ripe for a reaping crusade. Both these programs and It Is Written have specialized kits available for planning reaping.
Making a Local Broadcast Soul Winning
Match your offers and follow-up with the type of broadcast you are making. Thus VOP's Faith Course matches the style of the Voice of Prophecy. Joe Crews's Amazing Facts Bible Course matches the Amazing Facts broadcast. Every really successful follow-up program works this way, perhaps not consciously, but none the less effectively.
Here are some local radio formats with possible follow-up techniques:
1. Five-minute daily newscast and comment based on the Public Relations Bureau's On the Air (ten dollars a year for weekly issue from the General Conference). Follow-up should be relevant and topical. A. S. Maxwell booklets, G. E. Vandeman booklets, or a mimeographed news comment sheet. These interests should be contacted in the home or brought to a public meeting when interest is sufficiently established,
2. Fifteen-minute broadcast of doctrinal or devotional style. Follow up with regular Bible course or with Gift Bible lessons. Book offers possibly will attract mail if adequately advertized.
3. Bible-marking broadcasts—use of the gift-Bible lessons in a Bible-marking series is a most effective way of arousing and sustaining an interest. This can be followed up either in the home by laymen or in a public campaign.
Plan Carefully
Much could be said about producing a broadcast for radio or television. We recommend the new book So You're Going on the Air, from the General Conference Radio-Television Department, for all cur rent and prospective broadcasters. Here are some pointers that will help make your broadcast successful evangelistically:
1. Select your audience. Think about whom you want to talk to, then choose the station, the messages, and the format that will appeal to them. Too much religious broadcasting is haphazard—hoping that it will appeal to everyone. This seldom hap pens—if you do not select an audience you may never develop one!
2. Seek professional advice on station availabilities, time slots, format, production. Unless you are trained in broadcasting you may fall into one of many traps for the ignorant and unwary.
3. Build publicity for your release. Your station will give you free advance spots. Use newspaper advertisements, handbills, telephone contacts, to feature your broadcast.
4. Set a schedule. Plan not only your broadcasts but your offers over at least a six-month period. Project the time and method of your follow-up. Know where you are going and why you are going there.
5. Use your church members in all phases of your planning and programming. Visiting, publicity, much of the routine work that goes with a broadcast can be done by our faithful laymen.
6. Keep touch with audience. All successful religious broadcasters owe their success as much to their faithful building of a mailing list and frequent contact with the people who listen as to anything else.
7. Stay professional. Music, scripting, speaking, production, should come as close as you can possibly make them to complete professionalism.
The Broadcast Interest
What kind of person will respond to an invitation to telephone for a book or write for a Bible course? Who will send in a prayer request or ask for a copy of your sermon?
Listeners who respond to religious broad casts have certain characteristics. They are careful, attentive listeners to radio or television.
You have met a need through your message or you promise an answer to a need in your free offer.
The potential interests are probably people who stay at home and find their entertainment through radio or television.
Many will have suffered some personal loss, or problem, making them receptive to your message.
Remembering who these people are, why they listened, will make your follow-up more effective. Of all people they are most effectively followed up in the home. Even radio and television personalities know that getting their listeners to come and meet them is not easy. All sorts of gimmicks are used by commercial stars. Religious leaders rely on very heavy advertising.
Do not expect them to rush to the Adventist church or a hall to meet you, the "star" of Winds of Prophecy or whatever you call your program. Without strong advertising programs and intensive organization of church members our national speakers find it almost impossible to attract the thousands of listeners they know are out there. Go out and find these people.
This applies as much to the names received from Voice of Prophecy and Faith for Today as it does to other broadcast interests. You have not dealt faithfully with these people if you invite them only to your Week of Prayer meetings or a Fordyce Detamore reaping campaign. Do this. But do more. Meet the people in their homes—not just once, but over a period of weeks. Then they may come to your meetings, and they may not. Perhaps the only way you will win them will be through persistent, faithful Bible studies in the home.
Don't expect too much. Just as an evangelist has to go over and over truths of doctrine, so you will have to explain what these people have heard on the program or read in the Bible lessons.
"This house-to-house labor, searching for souls, hunting for the lost sheep, is the most essential work that can be done."—Evangelism, p. 431, "It is not preaching that is the most important; it is house-to-house work, reasoning from the Word, explaining the Word. It is those workers who fol low the methods that Christ followed who will win souls for their hire."—Gospel Workers, p. 468.
