National Evangelism Initiative
December 2008
In December of 2006, the Evangelism Team of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) made an appeal to the Evangelism Directors of all the State Conventions to facilitate “listening sessions” involving key leadership, both pastors and laymen, in their respective states. The purpose of these sessions was to produce a list of suggestions relative to formulating a National Evangelism Strategy for Southern Baptists.
In February of 2007, I hosted an Evangelism Strategy Session at the Baptist Building in Topeka. Fifteen participants, including pastors and lay leaders from Kansas and Nebraska, met for about six hours of sharing viewpoints and experiences of evangelism in their local ministry settings. The group agreed upon a list of suggestions that we forwarded to the NAMB Evangelism Team.
After receiving input from across the nation, the NAMB Evangelism Team invited many State Evangelism Directors and other leaders across our convention to join them in establishing a National Evangelism Strategy that would challenge Southern Baptists to share the gospel with the lost people of North America.
Last July, at the State Leadership Meeting, hosted by NAMB in Atlanta, the NATIONAL EVANGELISM INITIATIVE (NEI): GOD’S PLAN FOR SHARING (GPS), was presented. It was very obvious that this was truly a “grassroots” emphasis. Many of the suggestions that were made by our workgroup from Kansas and Nebraska were obviously heard and were implemented in the proposed strategy.
The timeframe for NEI is 2010-2020. The challenge is twofold: Every believer sharing the gospel; Every person hearing the gospel. The method for implementing the NEI is GPS or God’s Plan for Sharing. The four major activities for GPS are: PRAYING – Every church praying for lost people; ENGAGING – Every believer sharing as a trained witness; SOWING – Every lost person receiving a witness; and HARVESTING – Every church harvesting and celebrating every salvation response. Obviously, these are activities in which our churches should already be engaged.
For the next several years, the NEI will be emphasized by both NAMB and LifeWay with the intention of challenging the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention to be intentional in evangelism.
In February of 2009, every pastor in KNCSB will receive a mailout from our office containing a brochure that explains the NEI/GPS. It will contain a DVD that may be shown to congregations to acquaint them with the emphasis. The mailout will also contain a letter, and a timeline relative to the implementation of NEI in our churches.
In our State Convention, as well as nationally, the number of baptisms reported by our churches continues to decline year after year. It is only as we commit ourselves to be intentional about reaching the lost with the gospel that we will be able to reverse the trend.
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