MORE than 200 members have been added to churches in northern and central California in the past nine years as a result of student evangelistic activities at Pacific Union College. But this figure, encouraging as it is, is actually one of the least impressive of the statistics that reflect the ever-growing student evangelistic emphasis on our campus. Tens of thousands of homes have been visited, with thousands of students participating in visitation and evangelistic activities. However, the most impressive accomplishments are those be neath the surface, the increased good will in surrounding communities toward our college, the fine spiritual atmosphere that has developed on the campus itself; but most of all, the vision young people have carried away with them to localities all over the world of the place evangelism can play in their service for God.
During these years at PUC the following activities can be recalled: Eleven public evangelistic efforts have been conducted by religion department teachers and students in Petaluma, Middletown, Calistoga, Sonoma, Sebastopol, Fortuna, Mill Valley, Cloverdale, Willows, and Pacifica. Two field schools of evangelism in cooperation with Andrews University were held at Fresno and Berkeley. Branch Sabbath Schools or Bible Story Hours have been initiated in twenty-three different locations. Fourteen Five-Day Plans were presented in northern California communities. A Community Service Center was developed and continued for two years in a rented building in St. Helena, featuring a reading room, welfare center, health education programs, oil painting, and Bible classes. Three thousand Steps to Christ were distributed in Napa. Community surveys followed up by Go Tell lessons have been conducted in Mill Valley, Cloverdale, Healdsburg, Fairfield, and Santa Rosa. A lending library visitation plan was experimented with in Yountville, and many individual and class evangelistic projects have been launched in surrounding communities.
Student Response to Evangelistic Opportunities
This year there is so much going on in the way of student evangelism that it is difficult for any one person to keep in touch with it all. A student evangelistic team has been working since early *m the summer in Fairfield and more than 30 have already been baptized there as a result of these efforts. Twenty-five hundred homes were contacted in Fairfield with a community survey. The response of the student body to this program was the most encouraging ever. The first week we provided one bus for transportation but had to take fifteen extra cars to accommodate those who turned out. The second week two buses were provided but still we had to find extra cars. The third week three buses weren't enough to provide for all who participated in the survey. For the first time a field school of evangelism was conducted during the school year. Several students received invaluable experience in this field school which began in Fairfield in January and was conducted four nights weekly for eight weeks.
The PUG student evangelistic team conducted the Friday night meetings, and Reuben Hubbard was evangelist in charge and speaker at the rest of the weekly lectures, which featured a health-evangelism approach.
An indication of the variety of evangelistic activities now going on at PUC, most of which are student organized, is seen in the following excerpt from the December 7 church bulletin:
UNITS:
1. Sonoma State Hospital
Visit mentally retarded children.
2. Hospitals and Homes for the Elderly
Singing.
Personal visiting and sharing of our faith.
3. Park Evangelism—Singing Groups
Sing, accompanied by witness teams prepared to talk to general public.
4. Witnessing Teams
With park singing groups.
Door-to-door witnessing.
Contacts on the streets.
Personal visits to invalids, shut-ins from Napa County Welfare Department.
5. Food Unit
Soliciting foodstuffs and clothing.
Taking food and clothing to needy.
6. Special Mission to Young Drug Users
Limited to few selected personnel.
Limited contact with "hippies" offering food, clothing, literature.
7. Orphanage Unit
Visit orphans personally (16 orphans in Bay area).
Provide good children's books and papers.
8. Ladies Visiting Homes of Unwed Mothers
Personal visits.
Good books and papers to read.
9. Fairfield Evangelism
Sponsored by PUC religion department.
10. Branch Sabbath School Teams
Sponsored by PUC Sabbath School.
A Typical Experience
A few months ago a woman in Santa Rosa called my wife to tell her that she would not be home the next Sabbath and to please let the young man who was planning to study with her know this. In the course of the telephone conversation she said, "That young man is the finest I have ever met. You will never know how much it means to me to have these students visit my home." Since the young man involved is our son, you can realize how pleased we were to hear her reaction. This interested woman has been turned over to Duane Grimstad, pastor, Santa Rosa church, along with a young man whom my son has been visiting, for follow-up studies.
My boy and I have spent many precious Saturday evenings together, earnestly searching the Bible to find answers to the questions the people he has been studying with have asked him during the Sabbath afternoon visits. This experience with my own son has helped me to realize more than ever before how important evangelistic experience is in helping our young people learn to appreciate and understand the Bible. As a freshman at PUC this year he has elected to take the doctrinal beliefs class taught by our religion department Bible instructor, Miss Tichenor, because his Bible-study experience in Santa Rosa has led him to feel the need of special training in developing Bible studies, and this is the emphasis in her class.
There are some I am sure who, without being really aware of what is taking place on our college campuses, are urging that evangelism be dropped from the collesre curriculum. Our experience here at PUC, however, clearly demonstrates that such a move would be a disservice to both our theology and nontheology students. With such an interest in student evangelistic ministry as has been manifested, to fail to provide them with the training that their experience in student evangelism has convinced them they need, would be unthinkable. We are now providing a stronger program than ever before in health evangelism, personal evangelism, and public evangelism, and believe that this training should be basic to the more advanced work in evangelism that the theology student must be provided at the Seminary level.
