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This
is my account of the International Convention of Itinerant
Evangelists, held in Amsterdam, last July. It lasted ten days and
drew four thousand evangelists. There were another thousand persons
who were trained to serve as stewards, and interpreters, and who
represented the press of the world. It was superbly organized and
carried out without a visible hitch. Because I consider it to be of
vital worth, this report will cover four installments. It will seek
to evaluate the gathering upon the basis of its effect upon the
contemporary religious scene.
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The
convention was divided into four parts, although not defined as
such. These were motivational, instructional, practical and
inspirational. They were translated into at least ten languages
simultaneously. In some cases, an interpreter sat beside a man who
spoke an isolated language and spoke softly to him. The first
meeting consisted of a gathering of all attendants at 8:00 o’clock
each morning. This was no small feat seeing that hundreds had never
stayed in a hotel before and all had different sleeping and eating
patterns. The meeting lasted for two hours. It featured eminent
speakers and singers from all over the world. The second featured
more than a hundred workshops by specialists in their fields. The
third represented actual contact in evangelism with the Dutch
people while the last brought in some of the great names in
evangelism in our day.
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Because
I am profoundly interested in the signs of the times and in the
history of current evenmts, I consider this gathering as the ninth in
a series of phenomena indicating that the world is ripe for another
reformation. Since the Amsterdam meeting ended I have seen the tenth
event which betokens the approach of a tremendous new movement,
which I have been pleased to call renewal through recovery of the
apostolic proclamation, purpose and power. The Amsterdam meeting
lent impetus to all three of these, and did so in a unique fashion.
It was interesting because few, if any, of the speakers knew that he
was being used as a revolutionary by Him who rules in the heavens.
It is possible that if some had realized it they might have declined
the honor.
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Perhaps,
original has: "as of" of as much value as the more formal meetings, were the informal
gatherings when there were no meetings in the Great Hall. It was
here I found myself most at home, talking with a score or more of
men from every nation under heaven. There were scores of questions,
and since I represented no sectarian institution I was as free to
learn as I was to share. I came to believe more fully than I had
ever believed that whatever God wants done can be better done by one
who is a Christian only than by anyone else. I cultivated the habit
of listening to souls anxious to talk about multitudinous problems.
It paid off and is still doing so in the many letters I am receiving
from Namibia, Zambia, South Africa, India, Sri Lanka, New Zealand,
and other remote places on our globe.
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In
this article I want to describe one of the many morning sessions and
tell why it was significant. I have chosen the final day. It was
addressed by two men — Michael Green and Cliff Barrows.
Michael Green lives at Oxford, England. He graduated with a degree
from Oxford, and two from Cambridge. He is an interesting speaker
and has a disarming little laugh that sounds almost boyish. His
theme was “The Evangelist and Spiritual Freshness of Life.”
He was made for it. Following his speech he led a tremendously
informative and helpful workshop. In it he dealt with some of the
ways in which he handles the atheistic and agnostic students which
crowd the halls of Oxford. I had read every book of his for several
years. I finished his latest “The Day Death Died” just
before embarking for the convention. I found it a remarkable study
of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
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Michael
Green has four children, two sons and two daughters. One of them
works in Watts, near Compton, California. He selected as the
camping-ground for his talk 2 Corinthians 4. There are two gods
mentioned here. The god of this world who blinded minds, and the God
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. He pointed out
that there are five things which keep one from being spiritually
fresh. 1. Repetition, proceeding from laziness. It is easier to
snack on what’s left than to go to the market for fresh fruit.
He suggested changing the water on the bouquet. 2. Hypocrisy, which
consists of pretending to be something one knows he is not. A wilted
hypocrite is a wilted nothing.
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3.
Playing the prima donna. The seizing of the principal role and then
playing it badly is one of the problems with preachers who are
jealous or filled with rivalries. 4. Keeping up appearances. Men
will sacrifice their families, friends, and even the church, for the
plaudits of fawning sycophants. 5. Tampering with the gospel. Men
who will not tamper with their car, the air conditioner, or any
other piece of machinery, have no hesitation about tampering with
the good news. It is frightening to wreck something so powerful.
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To
maintain freshness of life one must be tuned into life. Green
suggested four kinds of life which keep one renewed. They are
devotional, family, social and body life. He defined the latter as
the body worshiping its head in mighty power. He pointed out that it
is natural for an arm to receive nourishment, exercise and
relaxation as a part of the body, and urged his hearers to stay with
the body. One is like a ticket stub “Not good if detached.”
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A
lovely young girl from Vietnam who had been blinded by shrapnel from
an exploding bomb was led forward to the microphone where she sang a
hymn which brought a burst of applause from the thousands in the
auditorium. Then Cliff Barrows, who had directed the powerful
singing in every session arose to speak on “The Evangelist and
His Family.” He is the father of five children, with one son
laboring in Nigeria. Paying a special tribute to Corrie ten Boom, he
declared that he had been helped and inspired as much by this simple
Dutch woman as by any person on earth.
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He
based his remarks on 1 Peter 3:7, stressing the phrases “heirs
together”, “the grace of life”, and “your
prayers be not hindered”. He affirmed that more preachers were
ruined by “playing around” and by “sexual
infidelity” than by any other bait which the devil placed on
the trigger of his trap, and declared there were four steps to
infidelity casualness, callousness, carelessness, and compromise. He
declared that momentary gratification of the flesh was too great a
price to pay for loss of eternal life.
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Such
teaching had been going on each morning for nine days. Notebooks
were becoming full. Heads were becoming fuller. The morning break in
which a sandwich was shared with a cup of Dutch coffee so strong it
hit you like a lightning bolt was a kind of welcome respite. I would
like just to mention a few other morning speakers who were quite
impressive. There was Alfredo C. Smith, who was head of the Buenos
Aires Bible Institute and who founded the Lima Encounter With God
Project in 1976. He disagreed with Billy Graham on the need for
large organized efforts and opted instead for one-on-one encounter.
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He
was preceded by Gottfried Osei-Mensah, executive secretary for the
Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization. Formerly with the
Nairobi Baptist Church, he quit his post to travel for the Pan
African Fellowship of Evangelical Students. His theme was “The
Evangelist’s View of the Kingdom.” The message was very
informative and tremendously uplifting to all who heard it. Perhaps
one of the most stirring messages was given by E. V. Hill, of the
Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Watts, California. It really
turned the hearers on. Mr. Hill is a black preacher and he knows the
art of building to a climax. He certainly did so in an address which
will long be remembered by those who heard it. The morning sessions
of the convention were all worthwhile. I wish you might have heard
them. —139
Signal Hill Dr., St. Louis 63121