By Jerry Drace
Evangelist / Senior pastor, Friendship Baptist Church, Friendship.
At one time the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists (COSBE) had more than 600 members. Today it has fewer than 90 and less than 50 of these are preaching evangelists.
COSBE held its annual business meeting using a Zoom conference call on June 12. One of the areas of discussion was how COSBE members can help pastors and their congregations during this time of unrest and uncertainty in our nation.
Three very practical suggestions were offered:
(1) Pastors can invite an evangelist into their pulpits for a special one day service with focus on the answers to the crises in America.
(2) Pastors can invite an evangelist to conduct a “Zoom Revival” in their churches. Most every pastor in the SBC has been on either a Zoom conference call, or in a webinar meeting during this medical pandemic in America. The use of innovative technology has and will change the way the church conducts Kingdom business in the future.
Jerry Drace
COSBE conducted a Good Friday evangelistic video digital project which had over 400,000 viewers. An additional 100,000 people saw the program on Pakistani television. To illustrate the influence of internet proclamation, the Brazilian Baptist Convention partnered with Texas evangelist Sammy Tippit in May to conduct a social media crusade using Facebook and WhatsApp.
It was broadcast in 68 countries and 11 languages with more than14 million viewers. Tens of thousands of professions of faith were recorded and are now being followed up by the hundreds of pastors whose churches were involved. If it can happen in Brazil, it can happen in the United States.
(3) COSBE can help train counselors in preparation for either a local evangelistic revival, or an area wide evangelistic event through the use of short video clips.
The evangelists in our state would be thrilled to be invited into our churches for a one-day evangelistic service. If there was ever a time our people need to hear that Christ is the only answer to the crises which plague our nation it is now. It is not a political problem, or a racist problem, or a law enforcement problem we are facing in our nation. It is a heart problem.
Not until the heart is changed will our nation change. Our evangelists are waiting to be called by our pastors to come and serve them and their congregations by sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. B&R — Drace is an evangelist and senior pastor of Friendship Baptist Church, Friendship. He also is a former president of COSBE. If your church is interested in finding a Tennessee Baptist evangelist to hold a one-day revival, contact Drace at jdeainc@juno.com.
