 IF I were facing the Greater London Crusade all over again and wanted to avoid the mistakes I made then and to seize the opportunities I missed then, and if I wanted to give my best to it and gain most from it for my Church, here is what I think I would do:
1. I would seek to get the people praying earlier. I would urge them to put our mid-week prayer meeting first and I would see to it that I would do the same. Indeed, I would urge my staff to join me in setting an example to the rest of the congregation in giving priority to the prayer meeting. I would also en- courage people to pray regularly on their own for special friends and acquaintances whom they wanted to bring and see won for Christ, and to organize smaller prayer groups among themselves.
2. I would start preaching now about the evangelistic responsibility of the whole congregation. I would argue with them from the Scriptures that evangelism is the task of the whole Church and not of the pastor only; that the whole congregation must be mobilized for the work; that every Christian is required to be a witness, and that the endeavor to win people for Christ is not option- al but obligatory for the committed Christian.
3. Towards the attainment of this end, I would suggest that each member begin to prepare himself right away: by prayer, by study and by attending the training classes which I would arrange. I would also urge specially suitable people to enroll for the counsellor training classes when the time came.
4. I would train carefully selected and more experienced Christians in the follow-up of converts, so that I wis not caught napping when decision cards were sent back to me once the crusade had begun. I would al- so bring into being some converts' classes ("Nursery Classes", as we call them, since they are intended for new born babes in Christ) for simple corporate Bible reading and prayer, so that lay leaders could have some experience in running them before the crusade began.
5. I would make arrangements in good time for regular groups to go to the crusade. This in my case would mean an early applicator for tickets and the booking of bases. it would also involve modifying the program of my church's mid-week activities, so that as little os possible conflicted with the crusade. But I would not cut out the mid- week prayer meeting.
6. I would see that every person living in my parish knew about the crusade, by distributing a leaflet from house-to-house. In this Nay every- body would be clear about the dates and times and place, and about what arrangements our church had made to transport groups to the crusade. |
