Are organized and promoted mass meetings the pattern of evangelism that is pictured in the NT? I know Jesus drew large crowds but they were not “organized and promoted”, they just happened because, well, Jesus is Jesus. And Pentecost was a large gathering but it was neither organized or promoted (at least by men) but was spontaneous in the Temple on a High Holy Day.
No where else in the NT do we find the Apostles organizing mass crusades to win the lost and we are discovering that there is a very small percentage of those who “make decisions for Christ” at these meetings that are really genuine, lasting, life-changing conversions. One figure I read this week (and I can’t locate where I found it online) was that the average retention rate of “first-time converts” at mass crusades was around 1%. Billy Graham only claimed, at best, less than 10%.
Here are some figures I have compiled …· Charles E. Hackett, the division of home missions national director for the Assemblies of God in the U.S. said, “A soul at the altar does not generate much excitement in some circles because we realize approximately ninety-five out of every hundred will not become integrated into the church. In fact, most of them will not return for a second visit.”
· In his book Today’s Evangelism, Ernest C. Reisinger said of one outreach event, “It lasted eight days, and there were sixty-eight supposed conversions.” A month later, not one of the “converts” could be found.
· In 1991, organizers of a Salt Lake City concert encouraged follow-up. They said, “Less then 5 percent of those who respond to an altar call during a public crusade . . . are living a Christian life one year later.” In other words, more than 95 percent proved to be false converts.
· A pastor in Boulder, Colorado, sent a team to Russia in 1991 and obtained 2,500 decisions. The next year, the team found only thirty continuing in their faith. That’s a retention rate of 1.2 percent.
· In November 1970, a number of churches combined for a convention in Fort Worth, Texas, and secured 30,000 decisions. Six months later, the follow-up committee could only find thirty continuing in their faith.
· A mass crusade reported 18,000 decisions—yet, according to Church Growth magazine, 94 percent failed to become incorporated into a local church.
· In Sacramento, California, a combined crusade yielded more than 2,000 commitments. One church followed up on fifty-two of those decisions and couldn’t find one true convert.
· A leading U.S. denomination reported that during 1995 they secured 384,057 decisions but retained only 22,983 in fellowship. They couldn’t account for 361,074 supposed conversions. That’s a 6% retention rate (or, to put it another way, a 94 percent fall-away rate).
· In the March/April 1993 issue of American Horizon, the national director of home missions of a major U.S. denomination disclosed that in 1991, 11,500 churches had obtained 294,784 decisions for Christ. Unfortunately, they could find only 14,337 in fellowship. That means that despite the usual intense follow-up, they couldn’t account for approximately 280,000 of their “converts.”
As a pastor, I gave up on these methods a long time ago for the very reasons expressed above—they just didn’t work the way they appeared to work (superficially).
Makes me wonder if we are doing evangelism right? Do mass rallies really accomplish what we imagine they do and, most importantly,
Are we doing evangelism the right way, the biblical way?
~Jim
People with nothing to hide hide nothing.
