It must have been more than 90 degrees in the sanctuary. But the thing that made me feel really warm through and through was the excitement that glowed in the faces of the dozens of young men who had crowded to the front of the sanctuary at Universite Adventiste d'Haiti that Sabbath morning last August. These young men from French-speaking conferences and missions throughout the Inter-American Division had answered Elder Samuel Monnier's invitation to come to the front if they wanted to give their lives in service to the Lord and train for the gospel ministry.
The call seemed a fitting climax to my four-week trip to the Inter-American Di vision. Along the way I had met and spoken with scores of similar young men and women whose lives are devoted to spreading the gospel.
I went to Inter-America to attend four sessions of the third Festival of the Laity. The division Church Ministries Department, under the leadership of Elder Sergio Moctezuma, and Ministerial Association, led by Elder Salim Japas, cosponsor these festivals once every five years to honor, encourage, and give further training to the laypeople and pastors who have done the most to win souls during the quinquennium.
I went with questions in my mind: How has this division managed to motivate its laity and ministry to win so many souls? (Their Harvest 90 goal of 400,000 baptisms will have been fulfilled before you read this.) Is the strong emphasis on baptismal goals leading to hasty baptisms and equally hasty apostasies? Are the people feeling burdened down by high goals, or is their enthusiasm growing as they sense the enormity of the task? Is there a danger of triumphalism leading to complacency? Why do so many members in this division devote themselves to soul winning? Is it only the uneducated, poverty-ridden peasants who are being converted?
In my search for answers I scheduled interviews with top soul winners, engaged in informal chats with random delegates, listened carefully to scores of re ports and stories, and picked the brains of division, union, and conference administrators. My quest carried me to all four of this quinquennium's festivals. In Mexico I met with some 3,500 delegates from the two Mexican unions. In Guatemala, a similar number of representatives from the rest of the division's Spanish-speaking countries came together. A high point of this festival was the arrival of five representatives from Cuba. Approximately 1,000 delegates from the English-speaking areas met in Trinidad, and a similar number of French-speaking delegates attended the festival in Haiti.
I came home with many answers, some remaining questions, and an essentially positive assessment of what is going on in the division between the Americas. I also returned with a vision of what could be accomplished if I, and others in North America, can catch the soul-winning spirit that is blowing our way from our southern border.
Key to success
The point that came across to me repeatedly in my travels was this: Here is a group of people who still believe that be coming a Seventh-day Adventist Christian is important, and that doing so makes a positive difference in the quality of individuals' lives.
I suppose that the reason this point struck me so strongly is that in the environment where I live and work, it is more common to hear people criticizing the church's stand on various issues than to hear people speak of the positive influence the church has had on their lives. The environment I live in is characterized all too strongly by an academy graduation that I attended recently. The class motto was based on words from a currently popular movie. The class members who were singled out for particular praise and applause were not those who had decided to devote their lives to serving the Lord, but those who had been accepted at prestigious non-Adventist universities to pursue financially rewarding careers. In fact, God didn't get much mention at all, other than in the baccalaureate address. Which was given by a non-Adventist minister.
I share this, not as a criticism of the academy, although I felt sorry for the Adventist youth who had spent some of their most important formative years surrounded by its influence, but simply to draw the contrast and seek its lessons. The contrast glowed in the faces of those eager young men in Haiti.
It seems to me that the real key to the success of the Inter-American Division's soul-winning program is not goals, pro motion, or pressure. It is founded in belief. These people still believe the good old Seventh-day Adventist message. They still believe that their neighbors need to hear the message. They still believe that Jesus is coming back again. They still believe that the Second Coming is the greatest hope for humanity. The young people still believe that it is more honorable to serve the Lord than to drive a Porsche.
Of course, to generalize about the attitude of everyone in the division after associating with only the top soul winners is to view things through rose-colored glasses. There are areas in which the growth is slow, and areas in which the work has been impeded by administrative problems. But I went there to find out why the work is succeeding where it is succeeding. And there are plenty of places where that is the case.
Quantity and quality
One of my deepest concerns as I headed for Inter-America was the quality of workmanship that is providing the division's rapid growth. Is it possible that inadequately prepared people are being brought into the church just to meet numerical goals? If so, could this lead to problems such as the early church en countered by bringing the unconverted into membership?
Some people are baptized prematurely in Inter-America but nothing I saw indicated the practice is more prevalent there than elsewhere. I heard a few horror stories about pastors holding massive crusades -followed by massive baptisms and massive apostasies. But I heard many more stories of concerned laypeople going from house to house until they gathered a small group together to study the Bible. I talked to laymen and laywomen who devote two, three, or more nights per week to painstakingly preparing interests for church membership prior to a reaping campaign.
These laypeople have a genuine concern for the souls they have labored to save, and though they admit that Satan works hard on people after baptism, most seem concerned to follow up and make sure that new converts are integrated into church life. However, problems may arise if these laypeople are encouraged to strive toward higher and higher goals. Unrealistic goals compel people to specialize more in soul winning than in soul saving.
In the Spanish meetings I spent a good deal of my time following division ministerial secretary and evangelist Salim Japas from place to place. To go anywhere with Salim was an exceedingly slow process not because this spry young man who will retire next year walks slowly, though. The problem was that he could hardly take a step without meeting some one who had joined the church as a result of his crusades and who was now attending the festival as a top soul winner. It seemed clear to me that a good percent age of the people this evangelist brings to the Lord continue in the faith and in sharing their faith.
The question of the tare-rate in the harvest was always before me, but these representatives of the good wheat that had been gathered in made me happy that the harvest is being conducted expeditiously. Without the soul-winning emphasis, neither wheat nor tares would have been gathered.
One factor that makes it easier to make sure that new converts become a part of church life is the extent to which people's lives, especially in rural settings, center on the church. Most Adventist churches in the division hold several meetings during the week in addition to Sabbath services. Thus it is common to have activity at the church on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, plus all day Sabbath.
Vision for the future
Division president George Brown bubbles with enthusiasm when he talks about the future. "I can hardly imagine what it will be like in the future," he says, referring to the way that the accession rate has been accelerating.
I had feared that perhaps I would en counter a sense of triumphalism in the division--that perhaps these festivals could give the delegates a sense of complacency. But my fears were unfounded. The keynote address at each festival was based on the words of Joshua 13:1, "There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed," and this motto was emblazoned on a banner at the front of each meeting place.
Division administrators are well aware of the fact that though there are some conferences in their territory where there is one Adventist for every 16 inhabit ants, there are also areas such as Mexico City, where the Adventist presence is at best inconspicuous. They are aware of the difficult as well as the fertile fields in the division. They are aware of the in creasing pressures of secularization that will make work more and more difficult even in rural areas.
The laypeople are aware of these things too, and they are continually seeking new ways to reach their neighbors for Christ. As one layman told me, though, in prosperous areas not only is it more difficult to get interests to come to meetings, but it is increasingly difficult to get members to come to anything but Sabbath morning services. It is the rural and less prosperous areas that yield much of the growth, but efforts are being made to reach other classes as well. And the Adventist emphasis on education is helping second-generation Adventists to move into more prosperous circles.
The most popular method of study in Spanish areas seems to be to lead students through the book Fe de Jesus (The Faith of Jesus), which is the baptismal manual. But in-home Revelation seminars are becoming popular as well, and the division brought a representative from Concerned Communications to the Spanish meetings to teach people to use a family life course for evangelism. In Trinidad I heard about creative approaches such as CB radio Bible-discussion groups that have led to many baptisms. Jail ministry and ministry to AIDS patients are also carried on with good results in many areas.
Personal assessment
Overall, the experience of attending these festivals was positive. I knew that I would be called on to preach to these successful soul winners, and wondered what I, whose evangelistic results could not match theirs, could say to them. In the process of getting acquainted with them, though, I learned that they are just ordinary human beings whose need to hear the gospel preached is not annulled by their own success at preaching.
But these ordinary people believe strongly in what they are doing. And they believe strongly in the God whom they serve. And what they believe is making an extraordinary difference in their lives, and in the lives of their neighbors. --Kenneth R. Wade.
