oting a document entitled "Evangelism and Church Growth-Nurture of New Believers," members of the General Conference Executive Committee affirmed their belief in the importance of nurturing new believers. The action addresses concerns that evangelistic programs may fail to provide follow-up spiritual nurture for those newly-baptized.

"At the last Annual Council we approved a document on the value of our evangelistic work and mission," commented GC vice-president Lowell Cooper as he introduced the item. "Today these recommendations operationalize this value."

The newly-voted policy addresses the issue of unprecedented growth in membership, often through large evangelistic outreaches. Unfortunately, "in many situations the new membership overwhelms the capacity of the local organizations to care adequately for nurture and spiritual growth," the document observes.

Ivan Warden

The recommendations address this issue of providing nurture by requiring evangelistic program budgets to set aside, as a minimum, an amount equal to one third of the evangelism expense for post-evangelism activities. Additionally, this amount must be deposited with the local field unit before evangelism begins. Nor are the funds intended to be used primarily for church building costs, rather they are to be used to "sustain regular contact with new believers in ways that increase their understanding of biblical teaching and that integrate them into the life of a local church."

Commenting on the proposals, GC president Jan Paulsen said that this action would go to "divisions and unions, and to the local fields. The local fields will receive these resources when evangelistic requests are made, and now nurture will be built into the budget."

GC education director Garland Dulan wondered "is there anywhere that the concept of nurture is operationally defined?" adding that there should "not be an expectation that things are understood by osmosis."

GC ministerial secretary James Cress suggested that "broad principles for building more established believers" already existed, and that the issue was not one of "lack of resources but that evangelism needed to be seen to include building believers."

Secretary of the Southern Asia Division, K.J. Moses said that his division would pass on the new policy to union and section levels. He also noted that "the document does not mean that nurture is not being done, and many volunteer teams were nurturing believers," but agreed the policy would be helpful in ensuring nurture took place.