"Many people are waiting for the harvesters to come," said Bobby Welch, president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), as he prepared to lead some 100 seminary students to a day-long evangelism blitz.
Welch, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Daytona Beach, Fla, who traveled across the country on an "Everyone Can" but tour to promote evangelism among Southern Baptists, explained that his experience was eye-opening.
"There is a longing out there in the harvest field like I have never seen before," he said to the faculty and students at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS), according to Baptist Press. "There is a movement of God in the harvest field."
"The world is waiting for us to come with the Gospel of Jesus Christ," he continued. "There are people out there with whom God is dealing."
According to BP, Welch said he saw the markings of revival during his tour, though he hoped to see those same signs within the church itself.
"What if God is trying to have a revival out there where they are hungering, thirsting, longing and looking and we will not move out of here?" Welch asked. "What if we miss what God is doing out there because we refuse to go?"
At that end, Welch encouraged the seminary community to commit to training, witnessing, baptising, giving, starting new units and participating in Vacation Bible School, according to BP. Work in these six areas is essential, he said, if the SBC is to reach the goal of 1 million baptisms in one year.
Following his invigorating speech, students took the gospel to the streets; by nightfall, twelve people made professions of faith in Christ.
Pauline J. Chang
Ecumenical Press