WEDNESDAY, 9/13
MORNING:
Excellent class today. We learned about youth evangelism that works and is very relevant. Great ideas and inspirational. We also had a workers meeting because we are going to start visitation. I’m going to be working with a great guy who is a pastor and site-manager. So, I’m going to be getting a lot of experience in administrative responsibilities which I’m happy about.
We got the preliminary numbers of visitors at our meeting. We’ve had 100 new visitors over the first four days. The first night was 40 visitors and after that about 20 the other three nights. That only includes new visitors and not returning visitors. So, we felt like that was good news. The list of visitors was divided up among the teams and calls and efforts to visit them are going to be getting underway.
FIFTH NIGHT:
We decided to hit the streets before the meeting. We took flyers and headed out in different directions. We went to the main street and decided to visit the businesses and leave flyers with them. We talked with a few people on the street as well. I noticed that everyone has a story they want to tell. Many people just want someone to listen to them. I was amazed to see how many groups of teens hang out on the street. By far we saw more teens on the street than any other group.
We had quite a large dip in attendance. It was around 50 people if even that. There were only a handful of new visitors. The message for the evening was on the state of the dead. From what we could tell, people were really responsive and open to the teaching. At the end he made an appeal for people who needed healing to come forward. As usual, basically everyone came forward. The evangelist got oil and anointed everyone who came forward. It took around 20-30 minutes but seemed meaningful for the people.
COMMENTARY:
As I said before, many people just want someone to listen to them. It seems like all we have to offer is someone to tell them what to believe and think without hearing their stories. I think this is why the visitation is going to be so important. However, we are only going to visit people who have attended so what about all those who haven’t come but might if they could be heard?
We have nothing for the teens. They hang out on the streets in packs of people with nothing to do but get in trouble. There is a real need for youth outreach but we don’t have anything. Frankly, teens aren’t going to come listen to a preacher 5 nights a week so we have to do something different.
I think we are going to have smaller attendance now. We were relying on new visitors coming but it seems like that number is going to fall as things go along and had a big drop tonight. We’ll see how things go Friday (we’re off Thursday) and I expect a bit of a jump because it’s the weekend but, some tough days might be ahead.
MORNING:
Excellent class today. We learned about youth evangelism that works and is very relevant. Great ideas and inspirational. We also had a workers meeting because we are going to start visitation. I’m going to be working with a great guy who is a pastor and site-manager. So, I’m going to be getting a lot of experience in administrative responsibilities which I’m happy about.
We got the preliminary numbers of visitors at our meeting. We’ve had 100 new visitors over the first four days. The first night was 40 visitors and after that about 20 the other three nights. That only includes new visitors and not returning visitors. So, we felt like that was good news. The list of visitors was divided up among the teams and calls and efforts to visit them are going to be getting underway.
FIFTH NIGHT:
We decided to hit the streets before the meeting. We took flyers and headed out in different directions. We went to the main street and decided to visit the businesses and leave flyers with them. We talked with a few people on the street as well. I noticed that everyone has a story they want to tell. Many people just want someone to listen to them. I was amazed to see how many groups of teens hang out on the street. By far we saw more teens on the street than any other group.
We had quite a large dip in attendance. It was around 50 people if even that. There were only a handful of new visitors. The message for the evening was on the state of the dead. From what we could tell, people were really responsive and open to the teaching. At the end he made an appeal for people who needed healing to come forward. As usual, basically everyone came forward. The evangelist got oil and anointed everyone who came forward. It took around 20-30 minutes but seemed meaningful for the people.
COMMENTARY:
As I said before, many people just want someone to listen to them. It seems like all we have to offer is someone to tell them what to believe and think without hearing their stories. I think this is why the visitation is going to be so important. However, we are only going to visit people who have attended so what about all those who haven’t come but might if they could be heard?
We have nothing for the teens. They hang out on the streets in packs of people with nothing to do but get in trouble. There is a real need for youth outreach but we don’t have anything. Frankly, teens aren’t going to come listen to a preacher 5 nights a week so we have to do something different.
I think we are going to have smaller attendance now. We were relying on new visitors coming but it seems like that number is going to fall as things go along and had a big drop tonight. We’ll see how things go Friday (we’re off Thursday) and I expect a bit of a jump because it’s the weekend but, some tough days might be ahead.
Comments
I don't think public meetings are an effective way of reaching youth and young adults. Sitting down for an hour or more and listening to people talk isn't really effective for life change in younger people. If you have to do something public it needs to be relevant and to the point. I also think it should be run and led by the young people themselves. It seems like many youth leaders work really hard to figure out what is relevant to the youth and try all kinds of things but never actually listen to the youth themselves and allow them to plan and lead things.
This is an excellent question though and hopefully others will share more in-depth ideas. I know it's something I'm going to explore more as I have time to reflect at the end of the series.
People to people and local involvement on social and study levels produce as many new, but really lasting members in our Knoxville, TN First SDA church as when we had Conference evangelist appear. They love the Lord and their church family.
Dwight Lehnhoff