You can book it, but they won’t come” was the warning in a planning meeting for a fall revival. Is that true? Are we too far removed from the successes of the annual week of preaching that drove evangelism for decades? Are people so skeptical they won’t come out for a series of church services to hear about Jesus? Is the evening cocooning fostered by a plethora of entertainment technologies at fault?
“We are starting from a different place today,” said IBSA’s Evangelism Director Scott Harris. “We’re trying to give people spiritual truths, but they have never experienced a spiritual atmosphere,” he cautioned.
So how does a church create a spiritual atmosphere? “It’s not just the feel of the revival services,” Harris said. “It starts long before that.”
First, a church has the break up the ground with regular, planned prayer for lost people. Harris introduced the SOW evangelism app in Illinois to help believers track their prayer for unsaved friends. The second step is inviting people to sit under anointed preaching of the gospel. And third is learning to share your personal story of salvation.
“We’re praying for the Holy Spirit to do something in them, that is creating a spiritual atmosphere,” Harris said. “He is also doing something in me, as I pray for them, see them with God’s eyes, and feel for them with God’s heart. God says, ‘I want you to join me in the pursuit of this person.’”
While serving an interim pastorate recently, Harris led a church to engage this model for a couple of months before revival meetings were held. Nine people were saved.
“I think churches gave up on revivals because they held meetings, but didn’t see a harvest,” Harris said. A reason for that may the missing piece of the evangelist. Harris points to the Ephesians 4 “APEST” list of church ministries—apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher. “Churches need to ask the evangelist to help bring in the harvest. That’s their gifting from God,” Harris said. His team can help connect pastors with evangelists who have proven ability to draw the net.