In recent years the number of baptisms reported by SBC churches has declined. In recent years the number of Revivals or Harvest Events has also declined. The correlation between the two seems obvious.
In 2005, over a third of the 42,000 churches in the Southern Baptist Convention reported less than three baptisms on their Annual Church Profile. These churches vary in size and demographics and many have a Bi-vocational Pastor. In 2006, with financial assistance of the North American Mission Board, COSBE developed a program to provide assistance to churches who have struggled to identify and reach people in their church and community with the Gospel. Many of these churches feel they are too small to use the ministry of a vocational evangelist because they feel they could not meet their financial needs. Many times they choose not to schedule a revival or harvest event or they choose to use local pastors and musicians. We are not minimizing the ministry of these individuals or casting dispersions on the Pastor’s revival team selection. Unfortunately history has shown that most of the time, these meetings do not produce a harvest of souls. We believe that utilizing the ministries of experienced, God-called Evangelists has the opportunity to produce a great harvest of souls.
The “Baptism Assistance Project” provides an Evangelistic Team to churches who request assistance. The church must commit to a detailed planning and preparation process prior to the meeting and agree to take an offering at every service. Each COSBE member who participates in one of these events will receive a modest pre-determined honorarium and appropriate travel and lodging expenses. The offering that is received will go back into the Baptism Assistance Project budget.
COSBE members have a passion for Harvest Evangelism and are committed to this project even though for most Evangelists the honorarium will be significantly lower than our ministry’s budget needs for a week. The COSBE goal is to conduct at least one hundred meetings each year. We conservatively project that we could see well over a thousand professions of faith recorded from these one hundred meetings. This alone is enough reason to make this investment, but we believe these meetings could serve as a catalyst to reinvigorate these churches for greater evangelism and ministry. The natural by-product would be strongerand healthier churches and increased efforts for evangelism in the church and community.
We recognize that the traditional revival model of Sunday through Wednesday services may not work in many places and we are committed to “thinking outside the box” when it comes to developing the strategy for implementation in each local church. We need to be creative in our approach in the small rural church, the urban church or the inner-city fellowship. We believe that with the experience of the selected Evangelistic Team and the knowledge of the local pastor we can plan and implement a successful harvest event. We also know from experience that we cannot just show up on the day the event starts and expect great things to happen. There must be significant prayer, preparation, training and personal commitment on the part of the leadership of the church and the incoming Evangelistic team.
