I know that our congregation seldom has scheduled revival meetings anymore. When we do, I often invite another trusted pastor that I’m certain won’t do any harm to the flock. I don’t have anything against having evangelists to speak (although I’ve had some bad experiences) but I am very selective about who I subject our people to.
I think the traveling evangelist now appears to be a one service guy:Tim Tebow like motivational speaker,Christian Comedian:Woman’s ministry guest speaker,Children’s evangelist,or a Perry Stone MannaFest speakeretc…These same folks are often seen around the country used during a weekend – Fri Night, all day Saturday meeting.I just don’t see anyone doing a week long revival and making a living at it________________
We have several state evangelists in ENC that stay quite busy. Jimmy Jones, Mike Mills (The Mills Family) and Danny Byrd are three that I can name. We were told when we traveled doing Family Crusades that we were missing out on half the chance for support if we did not have a product table. Most evangelists supplement offerings by having a product table & selling TShirts, CDs, etc. You can check out Danny Byrd & Mike Mills on Facebook. Danny & his wife are booked every week and sometimes do week long meetings.I agree that not many people are doing that anymore. It doesn’t help that a lot of ministers have other pastors do their revivals…or that a lot of churches can’t afford to pay much.Though I will say that our best offerings came from midsize to smaller churches. Larger churches usually had a set offering amount and that was it, no matter what came in the offerings. We did offering competitions as part of the crusade. We had a friend of ours tell us that we would have gotten a larger offering had we just walked in with a Bible rather than all the equipment we brought to do children’s ministry. (Sad, huh?________________More of Him…less of me.twitter.com/camiracle77www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=691241499&ref=name
Thanks for reminding me about Bro Jones. He and I ministered together at a revival back in the late 90’s at my brother’s church. I remember telling the people not to drink the Kool-Aid (sure he’s never heard that joke before ). I’m glad to hear he’s still going strong !
Unemployment is down. Believers should be able to find decent paying jobs if they’re looking. That way they won’t have to bug pastors for meetings.I don’t know if there are any tent-making jobs out there. Get a day-shift job and you should be able to preach evenings and weekends________________I’m not saved because I’m good. I’m saved because He’s good!My website: http://www.bradfreeman.comMy blog: bradcfreeman.tumblr.com/
As a bi-vocational Pastor, I have a really hard time hearing evangelists whine that their BMW broke down, or their RV needs tires or their jet….. this makes me sick. I have been in ministry now for almost 30 years and in that whole time I have worked at least 2 jobs on top of ministry. The last evangelist I had come to the church was like this. I tried to give him some advice from a Pastor about how he is perceived….he never had money but he drove a Mercedes, lived in a resort town, traveled everywhere, has degrees galore and here I am working everyday, living in a very modest house. When I was young I admired this guy but now that I am an adult……not so much. He got mad at me for the advice I gave him and now I have no respect for him .
Evangelists have largely went the way of tent revivals…
In the 60s and 70s, Church of God evangelism burned more brightly than, I think, any time before or since. Every church (at least in the South) seemed to want to book evangelists two, three, four, and more times a year. NOT for a Sunday through Wednesday revival, but for a full week (typically with Saturday night included). And often these revivals went on for two, three and more weeks.But Church of God evangelists have pretty much gone out of style. They are about as common as a roadside tent revival. Yes, every now and then, you find one, but they are rare.In the 70s, Carl Richardson put together, in my opinion, the finest State Evangelism team every (included Raymond Culpepper, if I heard right). My dad was also privileged to be on the Team. Bro. Richardson help these evangelists by supporting them, by talking them up, by giving them individualized poster for advertising purposes (that’s common today, but back then, many evangelists didn’t have a media packet).But today, I can name exactly TWO evangelists in Florida: Harold Hanks and Carl Thomas(?). Both are exceptional speakers, reminding me of evangelists back in the day. Very simply, we moved away from the emphasis on evangelists. In my day, they seemed like (for lack of a better word) rock stars. They were the front-liners on a mission from God to change the world–and they preached like it, too!Now that this season seems to have passed (or been left behind, whatever), we have come to REDEFINE evangelism as something more like just common witnessing or missionary work. I’m not sure it wasn’t redefined I order to make us all feel better about leaving the evangelists behind (so to speak). Yes, we still have evangelists! We are ALL evangelists when we witness for the Lord. And missionaries really do what the early church evangelists did.And yet, despite the redefinition (if that’s what it is), I KNOW that the evangelist of yesteryear, the one that traveled a state or region, preaching revivals from church to church, and winning people to the Lord in virtually every place they went, THAT was utterly pleasing to–and blessed by–God Himself. I cannot be convinced that evangelism (as we knew it then) has morphed into something that look more like evangelism-lite than what we once experienced. I have wondered if the reason that we see or hear of so few revivals in this time (and by revival, I mean REVIVAL!) is because we see and hear of so few evangelists. We cannot phase out one of the ministries that God set in the church and think that there will not be a negative effect.
The evangelist does not bring revival in his suitcase (or his motorhome.)The Church needs hearts hungry for the presence of the Lord and a move of the Spirit________________More of Him…less of me.twitter.com/camiracle77www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=691241499&ref=name
My Brother you expressed it very well, pretty much ‘spot on’ from my memory. ________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/
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I’m not against revival meetings, but I do question whether going around in preaching in churches really has much to do with what an ‘evangelist’ is in the Bible.Philip the evangelist went down to Samaria and preached to a bunch of people who weren’t Christians yet. He preached the gospel to an Ethiopian eunuch who wasn’t a Christian yet. I had a conversation with a Charismatic theologian on Facebook the other day. He said his dad would knock on tens of thousands of doors and lead a thousand people to the Lord every year________________
Link makes a good point. I suppose it’s semantics but perhaps revivalist would be more accurate than what we typically call an evangelist these days. It does seem that the more biblical role of an evangelist is to preach Christ to the unsaved.
From the pew. I am enjoying reading the comments on this subject. I never thought too much about a ‘revivalist as compared to evangelist’, as I remember. So this is very interesting. Very Good discussion post! ________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/
It is hard to see a reason for the change from the ‘long revivals’ that I did not like as a teenager in the parsonage. Our church had a six week revival once (no nights off) and I had to attend every service. But the standard was 1-2 full weeks. We in the pew are responsible for the decline as well as pastors. We over load ourselves with ‘activities’. There are obligations of kids in sports, music and arts (both pastor and members kids). Many folk work two jobs to make ends meet.Many things ‘requiring’ our attention did not exist in the 30-70’s time frame. Also bro Jack and bro Bill did not own a 30k$ boat that needed to run late and on Sundays. ________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/
Cojak, you just reminded me of a funny memory. I was serving alongside my brother and working a full-time job too. We had an evangelist that had been preaching a revival for two solid weeks. Then, my brother stood up and said I feel the revival needs to go on. I remember being so deflated that I was going to have to spend another week going to church every night