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3. U N I T E D S T A T E S ::
NEW EVANGELISM CAMPAIGN "PIE" SERVES UP HIGH RESPONSE RATE
A NATIONWIDE EVANGELISM campaign is recording big response rates with a new recipe that overturns conventional wisdom and refuses to focus on the events where people make their commitments to Christ.
Most of the time and effort put into the Impact World tour is invested before the week-long series of meetings, preparing local communities for the program, and afterwards making sure new Christians become firmly established in local churches.
While visiting teams present the gospel through music, performing arts and video at up to 30 different meetings and events during the Impact World week, members of local churches spend up to two years on preparation and follow-up.
A 120-strong team will soon be visiting a dozen towns and cities in seven States as the fourth leg of the Impact World tour - launched by Youth With A Mission Campaigns, with the aim of blanketing the country over a 25-year period - begins in Merced, California this month.
The level of decisions for Christ has risen each year. In the first year, 1994, it was 6.1 per cent. In 1995 the figure rose to 9.2 per cent, and last year to 13.3, with the increase due in part to a different approach to mass evangelism, according to YWAM Campaigns director Mark Anderson.
"Many times evangelism campaigns focus on the public proclamation of the gospel, but it's the preparation and follow-up that make it. If you look at a campaign as a pie, only a ten per cent slice should be the meetings, with the advance work and afterwards taking 45 per cent each," he said.
"That's what we see in the Bible. The Day of Pentecost, when Peter preached and 3,000 were saved, was preceded by several weeks of pray and preparation by the disciples. And afterwards they met daily with the converts to instruct them."
Advance work coordinated by YWAM Campaigns staff includes teaching on revival and prayer, with churches taking part in the outreach offering discipleship training courses offered to all those who become Christians during the event itself.
Impact World meetings are held in community and civic centers, schools, sports halls, retirement homes, and auditoriums. Among the special attractions during the week are extreme sports demonstrations, cultural presentations, and a fast-moving video report.
"Global knowledge is doubling every 14 months, and we need to stay relevant in the way we relate to people," said Anderson. "For the younger generation, the day of the talking head behind a podium is over. You cannot use a two-decade old model and then wonder why it doesn't work."
From California, this year's Impact World tour journeys through Washington, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, before ending in Wheeling, West Virginia in May. Currently focusing on rural communities and smaller cities, Impact World will take in urban centers later in the decade.
Similar campaign tours are planned by YWAM teams in Australia, Norway and India for the next two years, with interest in 11 other countries. "Eventually we would like to have 1,000 teams around the world," said Anderson.
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