|
On Friday, March 3,
the international It Is Written television ministry and the North
American Division of Seventh-day Adventists will launch a major
satellite evangelism initiative called ACTS 2000 "Revelation of
Hope" in Los Angeles. The entire series will be downlinked to
more that 600 churches across North America. Adventist Review associate
editor Bill Knott recently caught up with evangelist Mark
Finley and his wife, Ernestine ("Teenie"), both
of whom have been deeply involved in planning for this major
campaign.--Editors.
Bill: You probably don't usually think of yourselves as globe-trotters, but when I look at the schedule you've been on for the ACTS 2000 evangelistic campaigns, the term applies! As I recall, you've been in the Philippines, Ghana, Brazil, Romania, and most recently, Chile. Teenie: And we've got India to go to before we get to Los Angeles! Bill: When did your team make the decision to hold an ACTS 2000 series in LA? Mark: We
actually made the overall decision to do ACTS 2000 right after NET
'96. In the process we began looking at North American cities. We h Bill: You've certainly had to adopt highly different approaches and techniques to work in the many cultures you've lived in during the past 18 months. People absorb new ideas and information differently in LA than, say, in Bucharest. How have you fared with those transitions? Mark: I became convicted after we did NET '95 and NET '96 that it wasn't possible to reach the world from one central location. All previous NETS were uplinked from North with a North American context. I've become acutely aware that in many instances we've been trying to superimpose North American Division approaches around the world. The only real way to reach Africa, for example, is to go to Africa--after all, Jesus came to where we were--and to use African pictures on the screen, to tell African stories, African legends, to highlight African culture. So in every series of meetings of ACTS 2000, we've done that. And we'll do it again in LA. Teenie: Even though the methods in each one of those have been somewhat different, and LA's method will be a little different than it was for Africa or Romania, the five keys for successful evangelism have been used in every place: revival and renewal, equipping and training, community outreach, reaping and evangelism, and follow-up and nurture. Mark: These principles, we believe, are solid anyplace in the world. And the integrity of the Adventist message is universal. It's not a North American message; it's for the whole world. What's different in each place is the culture. So the question is How do you take that important message and package it in a unique culture? Bill: From what I've read, you've had intensive member involvement in the weeks before each of the international campaigns. What kind of lay involvement can you anticipate in Los Angeles as you get ready for March 3? Mark: We began working in Los Angeles more than a year ago, emphasizing prayer ministry and spiritual renewal, small prayer groups-- Teenie: The same five keys that we've used around the world! Mark: --trying to help people understand that God is not going to move unless hearts are open. I really believe that evangelism is the work of God. We cooperate with Him. As we participate in evangelism, we know that only God can change hearts and transform lives. We cooperate with God in the work that He's doing. I also believe that evangelism is rooted in a local church. It does no one any good to see Mark Finley as the star evangelist, so that everybody stands back and gets out of the way to watch what I do. I'm involved with local pastors to assist them in the work that God has given them to reach their communities. The evangelistic meeting, the six- or eight-week portion, is just part of a year- or year-and-a-half-long process. Evangelism isn't an event; it's a process. It starts with prayer and renewal. Then it adds training sessions. For months now Teenie has been working with local churches and pastors interested in training. Bill: I'd guess that's a bigger challenge in North America than in the Philippines. Teenie: Training members is the biggest challenge in North America, for sure. Adventist churches in the Philippines already have small groups ready for training. We have to help create them in Los Angeles. Bill: Where have you focused your training efforts? Teenie: We started in Norwalk, and from there we went to 54th Street, an African-American congregation in downtown Los Angeles. Then we held training events in South Bay and Temple City. In each area we taught six weeks of training classes, and, all told we gave between 500 and 550 people basic skills for sharing their faith and studying the Bible with others. My goal is for each person we trained to take at least one person through a whole series of Bible studies so that when Mark gives an appeal in the LA meetings, the people they've been studying with--their friends--will be ready to respond to Jesus. Our updates tell us that more than 300 of those we trained are going out and giving studies every week now. And when you match that talent pool with the 2100 requests for Bible studies we've received from LA in just the past three weeks, you can see why we're excited! Mark: A key piece of our program in LA has been a unique program we call "Soup and Salvation," which we think could be a model for all churches in North America. It grew out of our attempt to help motivate members to want to get involved in sharing their faith. Many laypeople have a heart to see their friends and neighbors won to Christ, but they haven't experienced success in soul winning, and they feel defeated. Second, North American lifestyles are under such time constraints that only something economical will work. Third, many people have had poor experiences following up names. We asked ourselves, "What can we do to turn these three things around? How can you give people a taste of positive soul winning? How can they maximize their time? How can we give them quality interests?" Teenie: Every Tuesday or Wednesday night a light supper--just soup and sandwiches--is prepared at the church, and members are encouraged to come there on their way home from work or school. After the meal and some instructions by an elder or the pastor, members choose their activity for the evening. One group begins an intercessory prayer ministry for an hour, another group visits former Adventists or those in the hospital. Others go out to give Bible studies, following up Bible study interest cards that were mailed before the ACTS 2000 series. Another group stuffs letters to mail to interest names or prepares new mailings. Right now we have 40 churches in the Los Angeles region on this program. Bill: That sounds like an idea built on a belief in spiritual gifts--that each member has a unique role to play in the body of Christ. Teenie: Exactly. And it's not just nice but unfocused ministry. The prayer warriors get the names of those who are going out to give studies that evening, as well as the names of the interests they're visiting. And then next week when the visitors report, they say, "God performed a miracle at this person's door!" Everyone rejoices--the prayer warriors, the ones visiting, those giving Bible studies, the ones preparing mailings, even the ones who prepared supper--because they've all been involved. Bill: Mark, I've heard that ACTS 2000 Los Angeles is going to be your ninth satellite evangelistic campaign. What have you learned about satellite evangelism from these efforts? Mark: One clear asset of satellite evangelism is this: It gives a local congregation the energy and the time to build relationships with the lost. All successful evangelism is rooted in relationships. If a local church knows that it can have the asset of top-quality preaching and talented musicians when the series begins, members can concentrate now on developing meaningful relationships, because they don't have to get involved with all the details of the meeting and the organizational structure. Pastors can focus on equipping and training members, encouraging members to visit former members, to follow up media ministry interests. Bill: But you also mentioned liabilities. Mark: Here's the downside. Satellite evangelism can often replace the ministry of members who sometimes feel, Let's let the professionals, the experts, like Dwight Nelson, Doug Batchelor, Ken Cox, or Mark Finley, do our evangelism. Some might be tempted to think, We're doing evangelism here because we had the last three NETs. All we had to do was turn on the satellite signal. Our church is an evangelistic church, you see! If members aren't personally motivated, the NETs can become very impersonal because you don't have that live evangelist there. The third liability is that the NETs and satellites have lost their novelty. When we first started in 1995-1996, the Adventist Church was eagerly "doing" technology, and members were excited. But now once you've done four or five, interest wanes. We've deliberately shifted our emphasis to a much more relational style of evangelism. That's probably the biggest lesson we've learned from the NETs. Bill: The Los Angeles metro area is huge and highly diverse. With the possible exception of New York City, you've got more languages, more ethnic diversity, than almost any other place on the continent. How is LA different from the other cities you've been to with the ACTS 2000 program? Mark: Los Angeles is more difficult to get your arms around because of the huge population base, the multiplied millions that live there, and the multiethnic groups. Let me tell you some things that we have concluded. We've consciously chosen not to hold our main meeting in downtown Los Angeles. We've gone out about six miles from Disneyland to a place called Buena Park, on the border of Los Angeles County and Orange County. The Sequoia Conference Center seats 2,000, and it's easy to get to from almost anywhere in the region. Second, we're promoting ACTS 2000 under an "umbrella." One of the meetings under that umbrella will be my meeting from Buena Park. The second part will be the downlink of my meeting that's carried live in 30-40 area churches. The third part of the LA program will be multiple evangelistic meetings in varying ethnic groups that may not be participating in the downlink. We'll have African-American meetings going, Hispanic meetings going, series focused on Asian-Americans. Bill: I've heard that you've also made some changes in your nightly format. Mark: First, we've shortened the preliminaries. I hope to be preaching within 15-20 minutes each night. The music will be deeply spiritual gospel music of the highest quality that connects with each evangelistic message. I've also learned that going five nights a week wears your audience out. We're meeting only four nights a week. That's easier on most churches in North America, and it gives me two other nights to be personally involved with the African-American campaign and the series that Milton Peverini is conducting that's aimed at Hispanics. At the end of ACTS 2000 Los Angeles, we've rented the Shrine Auditorium for all of our groups to come together for four nights to celebrate Easter weekend. Bill: How did you happen to choose the Shrine Auditorium? That's where Hollywood often holds the annual Oscar Award ceremonies, isn't it? Mark: Well, consider this one an Oscar for Jesus! Teenie: Los Angeles is so multicultural that it would be impossible for just one evangelist to do what's necessary. In this kind of evangelism we're talking about, there's no star evangelist. It's every member, every pastor, every administrator working, doing their part, using their gifts to bring people to Jesus. Bill: How will the two of you measure success in this evangelistic effort? Mark: "Success is really in God's hands. We believe that every time we cooperate with God in doing evangelism it is successful. Sometimes we see more immediate results than others, but only God evaluates true success. There is one other aspect of success. "Teenie and I consider our work a success if we positively inspire pastors and laypeople that they can be successful soul winners. Our work is a success if others using the methods we have shared become even more successful than us. Our work is a success if we see men and women respond to the claims of Christ and commit their lives to follow Him." Teenie: We believe that all across North America, if we have people trained and equipped, if we give them the tools to use, they can go out and do this. We want the success to be ongoing, forever, until Jesus comes. Bill: You preached two major "full-message" series in 1995 and 1996. How will your preaching in this series be different? Mark: Obviously, I'm not going to preach the same sermons again! I've recently restudied all the book of Revelation, restudied the messages, and my heart has been thrilled again at the profound message of hope I find there. That's why I'm calling this series "Revelation of Hope." It will cover all the major themes of Revelation with a Christ-centered approach. When you look at the self-styled "prophets" and psychics who made predictions about our day, you discover that most of them prophesied destruction and doom. Revelation is in contrast to that. Every sequence in the book of Revelation has a positive end--the seven trumpets, the seven seals, the seven churches--and you always move to this glorious event of tens of thousands of the redeemed worshiping around the throne of God. I've come to the conclusion that Revelation is the most hopeful book of the Bible. It's not focusing predominantly on beasts and cataclysms. So I'll be talking about hope--and reality! Certainly I'll be outlining the sequence of last-day events, but my primary focus will be on the life-changing qualities in the book and the positive ending of the book! "It's still not too late for churches who want a fresh, contemporary, Christ-centered approach to Revelation to get actively involved in the series. They may be surprised at what God will do." Teenie: When we look at events in the world, we could despair. When we look at the Word of God, we always find hope. Mark and I are experiencing a deeper dependence on God each day, knowing that the power of the Holy Spirit is working with us through the prayers of so many believers who are praying--for the meetings, for their friends, for their neighbors, for former members. We believe that the power of the Spirit is going to come down on these meetings in LA and across North America just as we have seen happen in so many other cities because God's people are still earnestly seeking Him. ___________________________________________________________ For More Church News |
ad
already been on the East Coast, in Chattanooga and Orlando. We knew
Dwight Nelson would be conducting NET '98 from in Michigan, and Doug
Batchelor would focus on New York. We looked to a West Coast city for
several reasons: first, because of the enormous population base in
southern California, which always moves me to want to do something for
God there, and second, because L.A. is a trend-setting city. As the
center of the entertainment industry, it shapes values throughout
America. We believe God would have us do something positive to shape
minds for Him. Thirdly, because we already have more than 100,000
people in the Los Angeles area viewing It Is Written on a regular
basis. Those were compelling reasons.
