A Conference of Evangelists
My life has fallen into a few stages.
As a child, I lived in Box Hill when it was village. I then became pastor to the slums of inner Melbourne for eight years. I was then a country parson and a teacher at a one teacher bush school out at Jackson Creek in Western Victoria and then for 13 years, I was a suburban minister in one of Australia’s largest suburban ministries.
And then, for more than 27 years I’ve been Superintendent in Sydney of Wesley Mission, Australia’s largest church ministry.
I’ve told you stories of people in each of these places.
Tonight I want you to come with me into the heart of the city.
As a person gets older it is natural that he or she wants to pass on his or her skills to the next generation. If the work you are doing is extremely important then you have a real commitment to making sure that you mentor someone else to be able to take your place. That is true of evangelists like Billy Graham. Billy Graham was the most successful evangelist perhaps of all time in reaching the largest number of people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What if Billy Graham could reduplicate himself? Of course there wouldn’t be a second Billy Graham, but there could be a second, third and fourth person giving the same message as Billy Graham. What if instead of the second, third and fourth it was two thousand, three thousand to four thousand who would take this place?
Billy Graham spoke with me in 1979 to ask me what I thought of the idea of having conference with evangelists from all over the world to skill and train them in the task of preaching the gospel. I replied to him at that time that it was the most important thing that he could do. It was possible that he could drop dread or be killed at any moment. As a matter or fact at that particular time there was a number of assassinations of hight profile people around the world. Because Billy Graham was on television conducting worldwide crusades he would be an absolute target for an assassin. Before that unfortunate event might happen, I said to him that I thought the best thing he could do would be to train thousands of men and women to become evangelists in his place. Billy spent some time thinking and praying about that with his senior advisor and then in 1982 I was asked if I would go to Amsterdam, Holland, to join him in a training program for such evangelists. There were over ten thousand who attended that particular conference in 1983 and I was amazed at the skill and commitment of the thousands of people who came from the underdeveloped world. The future of Church was safe in their hands.
But what amazed me more was that there were thousands of evangelists who were not able to attend simply because of lack of space. So a second conference for itinerant evangelists was organised in 1986. Again Mr Graham asked could I come and speak to those that were assembled and to conduct a number of workshops. In 1968, evangelists from 173 countries of the world formed the most representative world meeting of any kind held ever in history. The group included more than 20 countries and territories that were not even members of the United Nations. There were over 2,000 volunteer office staff, stewards, press and media representatives, and that increased the meeting’s attendances to more than 10,000 people a day.
Apart from giving my workshops and lectures I also broadcast live from Amsterdam for our Sunday night radio broadcast and despatched a number of newspaper articles to the Sydney Morning Herald and to other newspapers throughout Australia.
Such an undertaking was an enormous expense and although money was raised in Australia by faithful supporters who saw the concept, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association contributed more than $21 million to help bring the evangelists together. Most of those attending came from the third world countries and made huge sacrifices to raise money toward their fares. All of these people attending were itinerate evangelists, that is, people who like Billy Graham would travel from place to place preaching the Gospel. On the opening days I looked at people in every kind of dress and every colour of skin imaginable speaking so many different languages, I realised that we were seeing a modern day miracle in the church. If these people would go back to their homeland and there do the work of an evangelist, God’s work would be greatly developed and enhanced.
For example, walking into my budget hotel room, I met a very tall African with flowing robes. He introduced himself as Archbishop such and such. Knowing that in Africa frequently people take to themselves titles they haven’t earned or deserved, I quizzed him about the title of Archbishop. He told me a most remarkable story. On the day that he was converted he was baptised and on his way up out of the water, he thought to himself, “Now that I am baptised I must started a church” so the following Sunday he preached at an advertised gathering of a group of people who met together for the first time to establish his own church. He convinced that original group of people that they should start more churches. Four weeks later they established their second church. Then in quick succession came their third an fourth church. This meant that he also had to train young men and preachers to take the leadership of these new churches. Before long, this man had established more than 400 churches together with a college for preachers who were graduating in order to take up the ministry of one of the newly established churches. I said to him, “Archbishop, I don’t care who gave you that title but as far as I am concerned, you are a real Archbishop, having planted 400 churches and trained 300 ministers of the Gospel.”
At the opening ceremony Billy Graham, the honorary chairman, welcomed us all. Over the next seven days we were to hear 21 major addresses, attend five conference—wide seminars and attend seven of 14 workshops that were offered to people.
I met with a group of sixty-three evangelists who had come from Australia. These evangelists represented every state of Australia, including a number of Aborigines who ministered to tribal groups in Western Australia and South Australia. This group was to form bonds of partnership that would enable us to help with each other in the work of proclaiming the Gospel in the years that lie ahead.
Most of the evangelists that came to Amsterdam in 1986 came from Africa. Over 2,000 came from Africa where they worked in some of the most primitive of conditions and the poorest of villages. Most of them went barefoot every day, although a number had bicycles to ride from village to village. Most of them lived by faith and on whatever food was given to them as they travelled around. It was the same with 1,500 evangelists that came from Asia and another 1,500 that came from Latin America.
There was a great applause given just after the opening ceremony when 220 Argentinean evangelists arrived on a special jet that had been chartered through a special offering of people at the conference because the Argentinean pilots had gone on strike. We chartered the aircraft and sent it to Argentina to bring those 220 Argentinean evangelists. They really appreciated that worldwide support.
We slept in a variety of accommodation but all of us slept in low cost very budget areas including bunk beds set up in large halls. We ate meals together. The logistics of feeding 10,000 people at breakfast, lunch and tea boggles the mind, however the conference organisers camp up with a unique proposition—they ordered from the giant KLM Dutch airline 10,000 meals on trays as served to first class passengers of KLM airlines. We all ate well but after days of airline food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, we were ready to swear off airline food for life!
I never realised how many people from Africa and India and other very poor countries so rarely saw fresh water. But every person every day was given a large bottle of fresh water—pure spring water. Most of us didn’t need that and therefore left our bottles of water lying around. I saw African evangelists collecting boxfuls of bottled water in order to put them on the plane to take them home to the people in their villages!
One of the things that thrilled me about Amsterdam 1986 was that most of us were not white. In fact, ¾ of the participants came form poor 2/3 would countries. Those were still the days of the Cold war and for the Christians to get out of China and Russia was a very difficult thing. When the Russian Delegation stood and declared “We are all a great family and have only one father” they were greeted with enthusiastic applause. It was exactly the same with those who got out of communist China against all belief, and came and gathered with their brothers and sisters in Amsterdam.
One of the things we did in Amsterdam 86 was not only to learn how to evangelise but to put it into practise. One day 120 buses came into the great conference centre where we were meeting and took 8,000 evangelists to 68 locations where the evangelists went to work, preaching on street corners, on the beaches, at schools, sporting grounds and any other place they could get a congregation and thousands of people engaged individuals throughout Holland in personal discussion about how to be right with God.
Of special concern were the famous red light areas of Amsterdam. Christian evangelists went door knocking covering every place in downtown Amsterdam, speaking everyone they met including the madams and prostitutes of the brothels about changing their lifestyle and getting right with God. Over 1,000 Dutch people made professions of faith to the visiting evangelists and were referred to local Dutch churches who promised to follow them up. That included some remarkable people. One evangelist that attracted my attention had green and purple hair, dressed as a plunk rocker, with dangling earrings, a safety pin through her nose and bright orange and green clothes. She headed a group of punk evangelists who witnessed in the various nightclubs of Amsterdam. They in particular were of great value, working among the hundreds of drug-crazed youth whom you saw lying around the bridges over the canals.
As the conference drew to a close I witnessed a symbolic act that really touched my heart. We all conscious of how the Olympic flame is brought over a long journey and eventually arrives at the Olympic stadium and lights the torch that burns during the Olympic Games. In the same way a flame had been lit at Amsterdam and in his closing address before thousands of his colleagues, Billy Graham said that his prayer for the international conference for itinerant evangelists would spark a fire of revival that would spread around the globe. At that point six torch bearers lit their torches from the central light and ran out in six different directions, representing taking the light into the six continents of earth. It was an inspiring gathering and like many I was recommitting myself to proclaiming the truths of the Gospel.
In 2000, a third International Conference of Itinerant Evangelists was held in Amsterdam. This time I did not attend but encouraged Martin Johnson to go. Martin reported:
“During the month of September I was privileged to attend the 3rd International Conference for Itinerant Evangelists at Amsterdam 2000. Organised by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, nearly 11,000 evangelists and pastors travelled from 209 countries to attend. I was given media accreditation and prepare two, fifteen minute radio reports which aired live into Sunday Night Live. In addition, I recorded interviews with Joni Eareckson-Tada, John Stott, Anne Graham Lotz and Steve Saint for inclusion into Turn “Round Australia in the following weeks. It was a most moving experience to meet people from all over the world—all with a passion for preaching the Good News. Australia had the 6th highest number of attendees. I was reminded that the Cross of Christ still has the power to change lives with the continuing story of the Auca Indians just one testimony. Steve Saint’s father, Nate Saint, was killed in 1956 by Wincaye. Following a miraculous series of events, Wincaye is now an elder of the Church in this tribe and is now Steve’s “father”. To hear Wincaye recount how he now followed “God’s carvings” and walked “God’s Trail” was most moving!
The city of Sydney would grow to be one of the world’s great cities and Wesley Mission would grow to be one of the world’s great churches and I was privileged to spend each day in the heart of both.