Pastoral evangelism

204 Pages·1962·3.361 MB·English

by  Southard, Samuel

Samuel Southard
Pastoral
BROADMAN PRESS
Nashville, Tennessee
© 1962 • BROADMAN PRESS
Nashville, Tennessee
All rights reserved
International copyright secured
Fifth Printing
422-177
Scripture quotations are from
the Revised Standard Version
of the Bible. Copyrighted 1946
and 1952
Library of Congress catalog card number: 62-15327
Printed in the United States of America
2.5MH69KSP
Foreword
Pastoral evangelism is the greatest need of this hour. Without
pastoral evangelism, there will not be much of any other kind.
Many of us who labor in the field of evangelism are happy to
help introduce a book with a fresh approach, like the one written
here by Samuel Southard.
Many of the books today which deal at all with the psychologi
cal approach to conversion leave out entirely the place of the
Holy Spirit in the whole matter. To them, it is only a natural
thing, but I am happy that Dr. Southard has shown the work of
God in conversion. Every pastor who reads this book will find
many helpful and profitable suggestions to assist him in his
pastoral ministry.
The author has labored tirelessly to present a mature and
well-rounded conception of the challenging field of pastoral
evangelism. He has called attention to the need of it and has
offered timely suggestions as to how to perform it. This book
should be of priceless value to those who take advantage of it.
C. E. AUTREY
Director, Department of Evangelism
Baptist Home Mission Board
Preface
In pastors' conferences I have sometimes been asked: "What
does pastoral counseling have to do with the salvation of souls?
This book is an attempt to show how the spirit and methodology
of one type of pastoral psychology may be used in personal inter
views with individuals who have not made a commitment of
faith in Christ.
As I was beginning to gather material for this manuscript, an
experienced pastor and professor told me: "I don't believe that
many of our modern pastors have given much thought to the
real meaning of conversion." This led me to a historical and
theological study of evangelism and conversion. I found that
creative evangelists like Whitefield, Edwards, and Finney, plus
many pastors of individual congregations, built upon a founda
tion of pastoral care and church fellowship. This I have called
"personal evangelism." But unimaginative imitators in the
twentieth century have intensified the promotional aspects of
earlier revivalism and ignored the personal spirit of the work and
message. The streamlined, compact product is "instant evangel*
ism."
In my attempts to demonstrate that pastoral evangelism was
the practice of the patristic church and pioneer American con
gregations, I am greatly indebted to the following authorities in
evangelism, theology, church history, and pastoral care, who
have read the manuscript, made corrections, and offered sug
gestions:
C. E. Autrey and C. Y. Dossey, Division of Evangelism,
Southern Baptist Convention; Robert Ferm, Billy Graham
Evangelistic Association; William McLoughlin, Brown Univer
sity; Sabin Landry, W. Morgan Patterson, Dale Moody, W. W.
Adams, William Hull, Raymond Brown, Henlee Barnette, Wayne
vii
viii PREFACE
Oates, Swan Haworth, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary;
Franklin Segler, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary;
Charles L. King, First Presbyterian Church, Houston, Texas;
John Claypool, Crescent Hill Baptist Church, Louisville, Ken
tucky; David Stitt, Austin Presbyterian Seminary, Austin,
Texas. Also, I am indebted to Mrs. Mildred Moon, Tifton,
Georgia, for her corrections of style and grammar.
SAMUEL SOUTHARD
Contents
1. Stillborn Men . . .. 1
2. The Characteristics of Conversion .
3. Instant Evangelism . . .. 24
4. Personal Salvation . . . .41
5. A Pastoral Theology of Evangelism .
6. The Evangelism of Children .
7. Pastoral Care of New Converts .
8. Pastoral Aspects of Revivalism .
9. Individual and Social Change .
10. The Training of Evangelists .
Appendix . . . .186
Bibliography . . . .190
Index . . .. 197
1
Stillborn Men
It is the fourth night of a revival in an open country, one-room
Baptist church. Mary Bell and her family are there for the first
time during the revival. She is sitting with other teen-age girls.
Immediately after the benediction, the visiting preacher be
gins to go down the line of girls, asking each one if she is saved.
All answer yes except Mary. The preacher asks that the pastor
of the church join him in witnessing to this girl. As the three of
them talk in the sight of everyone, Mary begins to cry. The
preacher asks her to sit down and says:
"Are you a sinner and do you want to be saved?"
"Yes," she answers.
The preacher opens his Bible, reads Scripture passages on
God's plan for man's salvation, and pauses. The book is placed
so that she can see all the pages.
"Do you understand these, Mary?" She nods.
"Do you believe you are a sinner?" She nods. "Do you believe
that God is ready and willing to save you?"
"Yes."
"Will you repent and ask the Lord to save you right now?"
Mary puts her face in her hands and begins to cry again.
The preacher continues: "Now, Mary, say after me, 'O Lord,
be merciful to me, a sinner.' " Hesitatingly she does. "Now say, T
am now trusting Jesus as my Saviour. Amen.' " Mary slowly re
peats the words.
The visiting preacher immediately rises from his knees and
says, "Now, sister, you are saved because the Bible says that
'whosoever calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.' "
Mary wanders out of the church building.
1
2 PASTORAL EVANGELISM
The pastor who stood by tells the rest of the story: "Mary Bell
went home that night and neither she nor her parents (both
members of the church) have been back since.
"The next day after that service, I called at Mary's home. I
related the experience of the previous night to Mrs. Bell because
she had already gone out of the church house when Mary's ex
perience took place. She seemed very satisfied and pleased that
Mary had made a profession. She apparently had not talked to
Mary about it very much, if any.
"Mary then came in and I talked with her, explaining that the
next step a Christian ought to take would be to be baptized and
join a church. After a prayer I left.
"Although I have visited them many times since then and
every time they tell me they are going to get started back, they
never have. They seem to be glad to see me and I can detect no
resentment or bad feeling toward me or anyone at our church.
Since this past Christmas the children occasionally have attended
Sunday school at a church which is within walking distance of
their home.
"During my last visit to their home, which was about a month
ago, Mrs. Bell and her sons were there. During the conversation
she told me that Mary had told her that she just did not want to
join our church. She said that she held nothing against us, but
that she just did not want to join there. Not knowing how to
proceed, I just nodded my head and said nothing more about it.
"Of course you can see that I don't agree with, or like, the
visiting preacher's witnessing technique. I personally think he
has done more harm than good and has retarded my chances of
ever working very effectively with this family. It may be though,
that I am using him as an excuse for my own failure to make
effective contact with Mary or her family."
Did this girl ever have a real chance to become personally
acquainted with and accept the forgiveness of Jesus Christ?
Are Good Intentions Enough?
In answering the question about Mary, one might say: "Oh,
I'm sure that the visiting evangelist had the best of intentions!"
STILLBORN MEN 3
This comment could be granted as true in many cases. Our dif
ficulty is often not with our intentions but with our ignorance.
We want to lead people like Mary to a saving knowledge of Jesus
Christ, but how? Without a sympathetic knowledge of personal
ity we may be frustrated on many occasions. Mary will be sub
missive in the meeting, but when the social pressure is removed,
she retreats from a public commitment to Christ. To win Mary,
an evangelist needs more than good intentions. He must com
bine an understanding of individual motivation with the rich re
sources of Christian faith.
No matter how much the evangelist wishes Mary to be saved,
this will not come about because he desires it. The great chal
lenge of witnessing is to relate the concrete experience of each
man to the saving call of God in Christ. The power that quickens
does not reside in the persuasive impulses of the evangelist, but
in the Holy Spirit. We are the spiritual attendants (John 3:1-7;
2 Cor. 3:6; 1 Cor. 15:45; Rom. 8:26), the human assistants of
God, in this great drama of rebirth. True faith in Christ is a gift.
It is donated to the sons of God by adoption, through the Spirit
of Christ. It is his Spirit that convicts of sin, leads to repentance,
and gives new life. If the evangelist who witnessed to Mary was
asked about this, he would surely say "amen." But his practice is
not in keeping with his profession. In Mary's case, he ran ahead
of the Spirit of God. The Word may have been sown through the
sermon, but no one knows if it took root. Instead, men (two of
them) trampled it under foot through their mishandling of this
sensitive girl. How may we avoid such mistakes in the future?
Stillborn Men
Church surveys testify to the repeated failure of present-day
evangelism. In a 1953 study of inactive and nonresident Baptists,
C. E. Matthews concluded that "48.4 per cent of the entire mem
bership of Southern Baptist churches is lost to the cause of
Christ." 1 As secretary of evangelism for the Home Mission
Board, his judgment is impressive: "The most justifiable criti
cism that can be made of all that Southern Baptists are doing to-
1A Church Revival (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1955), p. 103.
4 PASTORAL EVANGELISM
day is their failure to conserve the results of their evangelistic
efforts." 2 The swift slogans and manipulative methods of popu
lar evangelism still may satisfy our pride in sudden statistical
success. But there is growing unrest among laymen and unsatis
fied longings among pastors for more personal and permanent
witnessing.
One reason for uneasiness is the streamlined reception of
converts into the church. A ten-second questioning by the pastor
has replaced the month-long agonizing of Puritan New England
and the congregational examinations of frontier Kentucky. How
can church membership mean anything when a walk down the
aisle of a church is the only visible requirement of conversion?
J. L. Dagg, in an early Southern Baptist manual, stated the prob
lem: "To receive any one on a mere profession of words, without
any effort to ascertain whether he understands and feels what he
professes, is unfaithfulness to his interests, and the interests of
religion." 3
Another cause for unrest is the manipulative attitudes and
techniques of some evangelists. The coercion of children is espe
cially resented. As one pastor put it: "I'm not going to have
another evangelist who empties every row in the Junior depart
ment. I've had parents and Sunday school teachers on my neck
for months about that. I don't blame them. The kids didn't
know what hit them."
Statistically, the age of conversion has been steadily dropping
in the past two hundred years. Adults were the usual converts in
colonial America. In the nineteenth century, adolescence seemed
to be the storm and stress period of salvation. By 1959, pastors in
western Kentucky could report that most of their converts were
between the ages of six and twelve. Today, churches that nomi
nally assent to believer's baptism only are receiving children at
an earlier age than that which is acceptable for full member
ship in churches that sprinkle infants.
A third danger sign is the unfruitful living of those who are
2 Ibid., p. 102.
8 A Manual of Theology, Second Part, a Treatise on Church Order (Charles
ton: Southern Baptist Publication Society, 1859), p. 269.