The North American Mission Board (NAMB) wants churches to see their communities with “fresh, evangelistic eyes.”
“We want to remind them of the things they used to do or use the things they do anyway and make these things more evangelistic, such as Vacation Bible School or fall festivals,” said Thomas Hammond, NAMB’s God’s Plan for Sharing (GPS) team leader in evangelism.
The 2012 GPS emphasis on attractional events is how NAMB wants to teach churches to do this.
An attractional event is “a (well-planned) evangelistic event (used) as a relational door to your community that provides a great opportunity to reach lost people for Christ,” according to the GPS pastor/church preparation guide.
But most Alabama Baptist churches are already doing these types of events, noted Sammy Gilbreath, director of the office of evangelism for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).
So how will the 2012 emphasis make a difference?
Participation in the emphasis involves four steps:
• an eight-week media saturation campaign called “Hope. Find It Here;”
• planning and implementing a community-reaching event;
• prayer walking and distributing invitations to the event one or two weeks beforehand; and
• doing follow-up with those who attended the event.
So what event should each church host?
That depends. Gilbreath suggested that each church will have a unique need, passion or idea for an attractional event in its neighborhood.
Jason Dunlap, pastor of Sharon Heights Baptist Church, Brookside, agreed.
“[If you have members] who are passionate (about something), they take it and run with it,” Dunlap said. “That’s the key. I can organize a golf tournament because that’s my passion, but I don’t have a clue about an antique car show. But I have people in my church who are passionate about it. … Let [the members] do what they’re called to do.”
The preparation guide includes a list of contact numbers for churches that have had skateboard ministries, horse whisperer events, fishing tournaments, marksmanship events, motorcycle rallies, basketball tournaments and other events to attract lost people and those who would typically never set foot in a church.
Once a church decides on an event, it should begin prayer, promotion and preparation for it in early February, according to the timeline in the preparation guide.
By mid-March, the church should begin the equipping phase with more prayer, prayer walking and training church members and staff for the event. During March, the church should be sowing the gospel and then harvesting with the community-reaching event.
Finally, in April, there’s an assimilation phase including a five-week follow-up time with event attendees.
Pastor Tommy Strickland of Five Points Baptist Church, Sylacauga, said churches should always register attendees because the contact list can become a great follow-up tool.
Gilbreath and his team are asking local churches to commit to do four attractional events this year.
“Churches already do some of these, such as revivals, Vacation Bible Schools and fall festivals. So they only have to commit to do one more. They also have to commit to make the four events intentionally evangelistic,” he said.
Gilbreath believes the use of attractional events in 2012 will be even bigger than the successes of the 2010 emphasis on door-to-door evangelism because such events give churches and pastors the opportunity to train their people to share their faith. “Our office just does the planning and preparation and then we become cheerleaders. The churches have to make it happen,” Gilbreath said.
In order to do that, Scotty Sanders, co-founder of ONE Focus Initiative (see story, page 6), said a commitment needs to be demonstrated by the pastor.
“If [the pastor] is not committed (to evangelism) at a high level, don’t expect others to be more committed (than he is),” Sanders said. “Many times, churches look like their pastors.”
Strickland added that it doesn’t matter how big or small a church is; every church can do attractional events.
For more information, visit www.greatcommissiongps.com or call the SBOM at 1-800-264-1225. (BP contributed)
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