Great Soul-Winning Churches - Elmer Towns

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Emmanuel Baptist Church, Marion, Ohio Charles Hand, Pastor “Changing an Old Fundamentalist Downtown Church Into an Evangelistic Church” The Emmanuel Baptist Church, Marion, Ohio, is an old-line fundamental church that declared complete independence from the American Baptist Convention some 20 years ago. It had always been a good solid Bible-teaching congregation. However, there had been no spectacular growth within the last 40 years. The annual Sunday School average attendance varied from a low of 295 to a high of 417 until Dr. Charles Hand was called as pastor the last Sunday of August, 1970. The Sunday School then averaged slightly over 200. Under his aggressive leadership the theologically correct congregation became also an evangelistically fervent church. In eighteen months the Sunday School nearly quadrupled. The church averaged over 800 in Sunday School by the spring of 1972 and baptized 767 during that church year. This was the tenth most baptisms in the nation, according to a survey made by THE SWORD OF THE LORD. Emmanuel Baptist Church had only had two pastors over the previous 27 years but had a history of “quiet wars.” <strong>Towns</strong>people were of the opinion that the last two pastors had been voted out. That had not happened. Some members wanted a church of no more than 300, another group wanted an aggressive soul-winning program, and others were apathetic. The new pastor’s appraisal of the situation was that he would lose members no matter what he did. “I felt that I could keep a few people who did little work; or I could keep many great unsung workers and go forward for God.” In the previous two years there had been 82 baptisms. Pastor Hand asked God to let him win and baptize more than that in the first four months of his new pastorate. There were 127 baptisms during that time. Because of the new emphasis on personal soul winning, the church grew in spite of losing people. There was no split. Individuals just dropped out. It was comparable to trying to hold a handful of sand as individual grains fall through your fingers. Members heard of the new pastor’s emphasis on evangelism and the use of promotional gifts on the buses. This was all new to them and feeling that newness was tantamount to falseness, they just never came to see the new program in action. There is no way to know how many left as a natural result of changing pastors or how many left because of the new program, but the phenomenal thing is that Sunday School records showed less than 100 that no longer attended. The pastor testifies, “This church is a living testimony that the majority of God’s people want a soul-winning church, pray for it and need only leadership to bring it about.” His philosophy is, “If a church can function properly without the leadership of the pastor, it doesn’t need a pastor.” He constantly reminds his people, “You do not pay me to preach or go soul winning. You pay me to administrate the affairs of this church. I go soul winning and preach on my own time just as you do.” When Pastor Hand came to the church there were 15 Sunday School teachers-12 of these are still teaching. In fact, currently the church has 54 Sunday School teachers of whom 46 were attending the church when Dr. Hand became pastor. There were 12 deacons-9 of these are still in the church. In addition, the church has the same treasurer, the same
Sunday school superintendent, the same chairman of deacons, and the same church clerk. Most of those who left were not only not doing the work of the ministry, but were hindering those who wanted to work. The church was not in the hands of the people but in the hands of a few leaders. The church needed an organizational conversion. Some of the leadership had the attitude that the pastor’s job was to win souls and they were to run the church. Dr. Hand’s reply was: “The pastor is a leader and should exercise leadership in every part of the church—including finances.” Events That Changed the Church In looking back over the past two years, Pastor Hand believes five events were used of God to transform the ministry of the church into an evangelistic instrument for God. 1. The church adopted a budget. Over the years the trustees had gradually been forced to assume control of financial matters since no one else seemed to be willing to accept responsibility. Dr. Hand believes that business matters of the church should at all times be in the hands of the people. The deacons or trustees do not make policy but make recommendations for church approval. The church had been accustomed to finding out where the money had been spent at an annual meeting. A budget was drawn up based on the past year’s expenditures and presented to the people for authorization. Now the church was authorizing expenditures and not a body within the church. 2. The pastor took over the Sunday School. Dr. Hand was appointed the educational director of the church and took responsibility for the Sunday School. Wanting quarterlies out of the Sunday School and knowing that adults were long accustomed to having them, he looked for an adult quarterly that he could adapt to the lower grades. The pastor wrote lessons that were based on the same Scripture text as the quarterlies used, but approached the text from a different slant. The adults found that the quarterlies were of no use in class and began to leave them at home. Now, no quarterly is used. He writes his own material from the Scriptures and his secretary adapts it for the younger children. Recently Dr. Hand made it possible for other Sunday Schools to purchase this material. The pastor brings the names of prospective teachers to the monthly deacons meeting at which time he discusses with the deacons these prospective teachers as to spiritual qualifications. Dr. Hand then personally enlists the teachers in a private conference with each one. A weekly teachers meeting at which the teacher’s attendance is mandatory is held on Wednesday evening before the regular service. 3. 590 in Sunday School. A big attendance day was planned for the first Sunday in December, 1970. They had 590 in Sunday School, representing doubled attendance in four months. At the next teachers meeting, some workers wrung their hands, complaining, “We can’t teach.” They complained of chaos the preceding Sunday. Dr. Hand announced, “Now you see; if we are to do this consistently, it means we are going to have to change some methods.” The teachers realized that to grow and reach lost people, they were going to have to adapt. Dr. Hand began at that teachers meeting to show them how they could double their class size and still teach the Word of God. The Sunday School had been departmentalized but each superintendent still looked to the pastor, instead of assuming responsibility. One superintendent kept coming with problems and each time Pastor Hand would say, “This is your church and this is your department. This is your work for God. What do you think you should do?” The
Page 1 and 2: Table of Contents Foreword Great So
Page 3 and 4: Churches, I tried to include deeper
Page 5 and 6: Sunday School was held in a room ou
Page 7 and 8: Monroe confessed that he floundered
Page 9 and 10: In addition to being large, the Sun
Page 11 and 12: iblical principles, not to institut
Page 13 and 14: hurt his ministry. But he did. Huts
Page 15 and 16: the furniture. There are four other
Page 17 and 18: The church was averaging 250-300 in
Page 19 and 20: Beach. Gray chuckled. “Our people
Page 21 and 22: planted grove of palmetto that says
Page 23 and 24: Pastor Ware feels the church has gr
Page 25 and 26: company in town tried to rent three
Page 27 and 28: Worth, where Pastor Fleming studied
Page 29 and 30: 12 buses, paying between $1295 and
Page 31 and 32: For a number of years, Cummons held
Page 33 and 34: churches and have used the Twelve D
Page 35 and 36: working of the Holy Spirit. Wallace
Page 37 and 38: The children are divided into Sunda
Page 39 and 40: Baptist Bible Church, Elkton, Maryl
Page 41 and 42: God dealt with him about his sin. H
Page 43 and 44: Last summer the camp registered 808
Page 45 and 46: ank. Evangelist Talbert Moore let t
Page 47 and 48: school was packed out, they moved t
Page 49 and 50: Gary Coleman grew up in Dallas, Tex
Page 51: automobile mechanic went forward du
Page 55 and 56: Soul Winning at Emmanuel Pastor Han
Page 57 and 58: School and church organization. He
Page 59 and 60: After his conversion, when people h
Page 61 and 62: complete preparation for the second
Page 63 and 64: in the newspaper the number of visi
Page 65 and 66: Emmanuel Baptist Church is ministry
Page 67 and 68: forward, but after the impromptu me
Page 69 and 70: won to the Lord a number of hippies
Page 71 and 72: His persistence that has led to the
Page 73 and 74: Pennell had been praying about reac
Page 75 and 76: Another factor that changed Pennell
Page 77 and 78: When Powell wanted to build the chu
Page 79 and 80: “Yes, sir.” “You’ve been a
Page 81 and 82: First Ray met individually with the
Page 83 and 84: On Safari Sunday an elephant was br
Page 85 and 86: II. THE CONVERSION OF BOB KELLEY Bo
Page 87 and 88: When Kelley first came, he took the
Page 89 and 90: Great churches are built by great m
Page 91 and 92: that men are lost—yet the call to
Page 93 and 94: people going into the Lord’s serv
Page 95 and 96: The words of George Mueller are app
Page 97 and 98: delivered me from all my fears” (
Page 99 and 100: average husband. However, he should
Page 101 and 102:
done. They are leery of accepting a
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Great Soul-Winning Churches - Elmer Towns

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