Do You Believe in Gospel Meetings?
As I write this, we are preparing for the final night of a Gospel Meeting in which I have been speaking. The Beacon Church of Christ in Parsons, Tennessee has been so gracious and we have enjoyed our time here. Of course, we are ready to go home again, but we have greatly enjoyed our time here, and I pray tonight’s final session will be just as encouraging.
During the meeting, we have seen one precious soul baptized into Christ and another respond asking for prayers of forgiveness. I pray that more will respond in a public way if that is needed tonight.
Many congregations no longer believe in Gospel Meetings, and they may not work everywhere. But last night a friend and I were talking about this and we agreed: Gospel Meetings still work, but only if we do! There must be planning and promotion. There must be a vision for the meeting. What is the purpose? What would you like the preacher to accomplish? How will you welcome him into the “life” of the congregation for that week? All of these things make a great difference in the meeting.
We are nearing “Gospel Meeting Season” in the south. Summers are filled with meetings, but many congregations just have them..well..because they have always had them. Little vision or planning is involved anymore. If that is the case where you are, then you may be right in thinking that Gospel Meetings do not work anymore. But, if you are willing to plan, pray, and have a mission for the meeting, they do still work.
8 Comments
lanewidick
So many churches are going to Summer Series instead of Gospel Meetings. While I remember being in awe of many a good Gospel Meeting speakers, people have just become so daggum busy these days – especially during the summer.
The problem is, and I’ve been guilty of this as well, the focus of the Summer Series is not the same as a bonafide Gospel Meeting. The emphasis is different – its more about bringing in the best guy you couldn’t get to be your full time preacher but is willing to come one time and speak for you.
But then again, most churches are not having multiple conversion Sundays anymore either. People tend to respond to the Gospel differently than in the past. The “Invitation” is not where we are getting our responses anymore, because most of our people listening are already Christians. People are afraid to come forward for prayers or confession, because of how people might respond to their response.
I feel that Gospel Meetings could indeed be effective again one day, after other items have run their course. It will one day again be a novel idea that is exciting and different. I think for now, we need to focus more on our members being the ones who go out and reach the lost, because the lost are not seeking us.
Adam Faughn
Lane, I think you are right about the Gospel Meeting being “novel” again someday. I know that, in some places that day is arriving. We had a meeting at Lebanon Road last year, and it was the first they had had in about 6 or 7 years. Another large congregation I know in the south is having their first meeting in many years next week. Maybe we are starting to see “novelty” with this idea again, and that could lead to greater working by the members to support Gospel Meetings.
lanewidick
I hope it does come again. I know that I have seen churches have successful 2 or 3 day evening workshops, say on marriage or relationships, or even praise and harmony workshops, and they are attended in an overwhelming fashion. I believe people are willing to go to things like this, but they may have to be packaged a bit differently as well. Re-branding things helps, instead of a Gospel Meeting, I bet if you just advertised it as a “Gospel Workshop” or “Conference” people would get interested again. We humans are fickle aren’t we?
James Hayes
I agree with what has been addressed here. Churches need to “date” Gospel Meetings instead of “marry” them. As is the case with many congregational traditions, members think that once you do something like a Gospel Meeting you should always do it forever and ever and never change the name or function of it, even if the event has lost its effectiveness. If the Meeting works, do it. If it becomes stale, change how it’s done or don’t do it.
M.J.
I agree with what has been said. Where I preach, we had one or two gospel meetings per year, but there was very little planning that went into them. The only people who came were people from our own congregation who were already Christians (and only about 60% of the congregation at that!), and a few Christians from other area congregations. (Many tend to view the gospel meeting as a success if we get other congregations to come, which to me is not the right mindset to have.) The visiting preacher was told to pick out himself whatever he wanted to preach about, with little to no guidance from the leadership of the congregation. The only advertising was to put the dates and times on our marquee about a week ahead of time. No one from the community came. The topics usually were evangelistic in nature, but the only ones who heard them were people who had already obeyed the gospel.
This year I’ve encouraged the elders and deacons to do things differently. This coming August, we’ve combined our youth rally and gospel meeting, with the youth rally focusing on teens who are already Christians and taking place on Friday through Sunday, and the gospel meeting focusing on non-Christians in the community and taking place Sunday through Tuesday. The topic for the youth rally is 2012: Will The World End This Year?, and the topic for the gospel meeting is Is America A Christian Nation? We chose that topic for the gospel meeting in an effort to draw the religious in the community who are not saved. We figured that if we advertised a theme along the lines of “What Must I Do To Be Saved?”, the majority of the religious in the community who are members of denominations would not come, since they (erroneously) believe that they are saved already. This way, we have a topic that will interest them and draw them in, and we have instructed the speaker to incorporate the gospel message (faith, repentance, baptism, the oneness of the church) into a significant part of each of his lessons alongside speaking about America’s Christian heritage. We’ve already advertised the youth rally and the gospel meeting in House to House/Heart to Heart, a mailing that is sent to each home in the church building’s zip code, and we plan to make banners to put in the front yard of the building and advertise in the local newspaper a month ahead of time, along with flyers to post throughout town in areas that allow solicitation. Additionally, we plan to strongly encourage each member all throughout the summer to talk the youth rally and gospel meeting up with everyone they know and encourage them to attend.
Hopefully, a stronger effort to plan and have vision and work to make the gospel meeting a success will do more for God’s glory than previous efforts. Please pray that we succeed!
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Adam Faughn
That is great that you are doing this much planning for this event! I really think that is one of the major keys: have a vision for the event, then (as the old saying goes) “work the plan!” I hope it goes well.