Evangelism in New Orleans

Scott Dawson is a Birmingham evangelist who has found a niche. He takes over the stadium of a minor league baseball team for one game during their regular season and involves churches to get people to the game and a program immediately following. On May 20, 2007, Dawson brings his “Safe at Home” event to Zephyrs Stadium in Metairie, the home of our New Orleans Triple-A baseball team.

The plan is simple. Dawson’s advance team comes to our city and helps us select a handful of key leaders who will enlist the support of churches. The churches hand out vouchers to their members, who in turn distribute them to their friends, focusing on those who need the Lord. The vouchers may be exchanged at the gate for tickets. Everything is free. The leadership lines up local business leaders to help fund the event. Volunteers are trained as workers and counselors.

Immediately following the baseball game, workers trot out onto the field and in 10 minutes flat, erect a platform and install the speaker system. A hot band plays, some great singer performs, and Scott Dawson speaks. An invitation similar to the kind Billy Graham is noted for is extended.

The date is Sunday, May 20. The game will be at 2 pm. The Scott Dawson folks have signed the contract with the Zephyrs to give away 9,000 tickets.

Dawson’s representatives will be in town next week, speaking to the Pastors Coalition at Celebration Church on Tuesday, February 13, at noon, and the next day, Wednesday, at our weekly pastors meeting at the Baptist Center.

Sometime this Spring, DiscipleNow Weekend will hit the bigtime in our area.


Baptist churches are well familiar with this annual Springtime event for the youth. It calls for a church’s teens to spend the night with some church members, usually a half dozen girls at this home, the same number of boys at that one, with an adult leader on the premises leading them, seeing to their well-being, etc. On Friday and Saturday nights, they have rallies at their church, exciting events with music and a good speaker. Saturday afternoon is filled with fun activities. That’s how it’s usually done.

This year, a large number of our Baptist churches on the West Bank (from Algiers through Gretna and Harvey, Marrero and Westwego, Belle Chasse, out to Avondale and on to Boutte and Luling) will go in together for their nighttime rallies in one spot. The churches on the East Bank–that’s everything from Chalmette and New Orleans to Metairie, Kenner, and west to LaPlace–will do likewise.

The plan is to involve hundreds of young people at each location.

We will appreciate the prayers for both these events.

We’ve learned a lot of lessons in the last 18 months, and one of the biggest is that the Lord blesses our work more when we throw in together with other churches and do not try to win the world alone. It was a hard way to learn it. Let’s hope the lesson stays learned.

This Saturday, some leaders from the North American Mission Board will be at our Baptist Center teaching a program of evangelism and personal witnessing called “Intentional Community Evangelism,” or ICE. The plan calls for everyone to go out into the neighborhoods and shopping centers in the afternoon and practice what we learned that morning.

One of our seminary students e-mailed a questionnaire from her class to my office this week, asking if I would take a few minutes and respond. The questions dealt with my take on the scarcity of evangelism in our churches and why so few church members share their faith in Christ.

“People are afraid of soulwinning,” I ventured. “Some have been burned in the past by difficult, hard to learn techniques which they were then coerced into going out and sharing. The memory of their fright still burns within them, and they are determined not to subject themselves to that kind of humiliation again. They feel rightly there has to be a better way.”

“Nothing overcomes fear like preparation. I do a dozen things in a week with hardly a thought which at some point in the distant past would have struck fear in my heart–everything from standing before crowds and speaking for a half hour, to sketching people in front of crowds, to writing articles, to confronting individuals, to witnessing–and the reason I’m not afraid any longer is that I know what I’m doing after practicing it for so long. Witnessing is the same way. Scary at first, but if you learn what to do, the fear dissolves.”

When asked what a minister can do to get his people witnessing, I wrote, “At first, nothing. Let him do it himself–daily, consistently, regularly. Ministers are notorious for trying to get their people to do what they themselves are not doing. So, first let the minister become a solid witness for Christ. The second step is for him to gradually involve a few of his people. Perhaps take one with him, have another call and invite someone to church the pastor has just led to the Lord, that sort of thing. Then, after he has learned what he is doing and is confident he knows how to motivate others and teach the process, then and only then should the pastor go public with a plan for witnessing and visitation.”

Tuesday afternoon in the seminary’s Hardin Student Center, I visited with the student who sent the questionnaire. After she thanked me for responding, I said, “Do me a favor. See if you can keep the class from being too negative toward the churches. That’s the easiest thing in the world for a seminary class to do–to sit in judgment on the pastors and the congregations as do-nothings. But it’s not that simple. Most of our people would love to be effective in sharing their faith and seeing their friends come to Christ. They need leadership that knows what to do and is willing to pay the price to get the job done. And the leaders need patience. A pastor should take the long view of an evangelistic program. Transforming a congregation is not a six-week, forty-day job. You can take a big step during that time, but you should think in terms of years.”

And eternity. Be sure to think in terms of eternity. God did. And still does.

2 thoughts on “Evangelism in New Orleans

  1. I have a funny story, Joe. Right after Steve and I got married, we went on Monday night visitation and while Steve was praying for those that we visited that they find Jesus, I was silently praying against him that no one would be at home. I hate going door to door. It literally scares me to death. Years later when we were called as MSC missionaries, we had gone to get some training and a young lady from New Orleans spoke to us about how to share our faith. What she said literally changed my life and how I share Jesus. She worked with the homeless and every Saturday they would hand out clothes and food. They rarely mentioned Jesus, they just loved them and provided for their needs. She said after awhile, they would ask, “Why do you do this?” At that time she said, they would share the gospel. In her words she said, It was the invitation of the Holy Spirit to share the Good News. She also said that you never should precede the leading of the Holy Spirit. You will fall flat of your face every time. Since I have learned to do this, the fear of witnessing has all but gone and joy has been restored.

  2. Joe,

    The eastbank DiscipleNow weekend (“Collision”) will be March 16-18, 2007. There are seven local churches participating, including FBC Kenner. It is going to be exciting!

    Julie

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