Editorial

Many avenues, one destination

The focus of Hope Channel involves spreading the message of Jesus Christ, but it's not the technology that's important-it's the message.

Nikolaus Satelmajer is the Editor of Ministry.
Willie Hucks is the Associate Editor of Ministry.

In my role as associate editor of Ministry, I spend a fair amount of time traveling. But I did very little traveling my first year in this position; indeed, it was a wise approach to allow me some time to become accustomed to my new responsibilities. So, five days a week I made the 30-minute drive to my office, spent approximately ten hours a day there (less than that on Fridays), then returned home.

My daily routine, including the weekends, was predictable: driving to and from work for five days, completing all the work during evenings and Sundays that I couldn’t complete while in the office, traveling to and from church on Sabbaths, and driving around the region on Sundays, visiting museums and other historical sites, learning about the place that I now call home. Of course, I didn’t instinctively know how to get to all these places. I spent time studying a map that someone gave me.

Three months after starting this assignment, it was time for me to take my first trip on behalf of the Ministerial Association of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists—a three-hour plane flight for a four-day meeting. I knew how to get to church; I knew how to get to work. But I now realized that I didn’t know how to get to the airport. So I pulled out that same map and studied it in an effort to determine how to get to the airport. I quickly discovered several roads I could take.

Two nights before my flight, I called a friend who lives nearby and has also flown in and out of that same airport many times. I asked him what he thought was the best way to get from my house to the airport. He shared with me an approach that made sense and was shorter and more direct—but one I had never noticed when looking at the map.

Could I still take those other roads to get to the airport in Baltimore? Of course. But I chose to take the path that my friend suggested. Why? Because it worked best for me.

Various methods of evangelism

Over the years, I have seen many approaches to conducting evangelism: tent meetings, prophecy seminars, and NET satellite evangelism. The popular form of public evangelism during my active pastoral ministry was the Daniel and Revelation seminar—a method that best suited my teaching style. But we must never forget that the most consistent form of evangelism takes place during the sermon each week—for if the sermon doesn’t have an evangelistic focus, then the time spent speaking may well have been wasted.

This issue of Ministry focuses on evangelism in its various forms. The year 2009 has been designated as the Year of Evangelism for the Seventh-day Adventist Church worldwide. And to lend extra focus to that theme, Bernadine Delafield and Gary Gibbs give an update on how Share the Hope meetings are faring nationwide in various Adventist churches.

Of course, there are many ways to evangelize outside of the local church setting. Radio evangelism in Adventist circles dates back to H. M. S. Richards. I remember during my childhood being blessed while watching George Vandeman and C. D. Brooks on television. Adventist World Radio (AWR) has a global reach, sharing the good news of God’s concern for humanity—mind, body, soul, and spirit.1 What AWR is to radio, Hope Channel is increasingly becoming to TV, expanding its worldwide reach. This issue of Ministry also features an interview with Brad Thorp and Gary Gibbs of Hope Channel.

Evangelism: Its personal dimensions

Not all evangelism is public in nature. Indeed, God’s church has rapidly grown as a result of person-to-person contact—such interpersonal relationships serve as the fuel for reaping meetings that garner most of the attention. Reflecting back on my district pastoral ministry, most of my baptisms were the result of personal Bible studies by church members to their relatives, neighbors, and friends—and such would not have occurred had it not been for what is often called friendship evangelism.

There is another personal dimension to this outreach, although in some respects it is public in nature. The work of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is performed by many men and women who often labor out of sight of many church members. They are “faceless” laborers who spread seeds of good news.2

Which way is the best way?

That is the wrong question. This is not an either–or. This is a both– and. The destination is sharing the gospel. But there are many avenues to accomplishing that task. Which way is the best way? Employing the gifts that the Holy Spirit has placed within each follower of Christ—whether those gifts are public or private, speaking or serving. And our job as ministers is to tap into our members’ understanding of those gifts and empower them to serve Christ and their fellow humanity.

Just as there are various ways to reach a destination, there are various ways to evangelize. Which way will you choose?

1 For more on the ministry of AWR, see “Reaching the World
One Person at a Time: An Interview With the Leaders of
Adventist World Radio,” Ministry, (January 2008).

2 For more on the ministry of ADRA, see “You Did Not Know
Us, But You Loved Us: An Interview With ADRA,” Ministry,
(March 2009).


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Nikolaus Satelmajer is the Editor of Ministry.
Willie Hucks is the Associate Editor of Ministry.

June 2009

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