Dear Pastor,

We are excited about working with you to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to your community. As we strategize, prepare, and pray together for God’s direction, we can expect that there will be MUCH FRUIT for the Kingdom of God, and a release of power and motivation for reaching the lost.

Everyone can contribute in some way to the evangelistic event in your church or community. Organize a prayer team, promotion team, event coordination team, follow up team, greeters and ushers team, and a team to prepare refreshments for after the services. If everyone has a job, they will have their heart in the work, and share in the reward.

I encourage you to include your young people, too. Statistics show and we know by experience that children and teens are the most receptive age group to the Gospel. Encourage your young people to pray for their friends and invite them. Involve the children and youth in the evangelistic event as ushers, greeters, singers, or as actors in a short skit. Consider a special youth night with music and ministry geared to them, so that the young people can receive an anointed Gospel message.

You can have your children and youth leaders share briefly during the services about what is available to young people in your church. Both parents and grandparents will be interested to hear about something to meet the spiritual needs of the young people in their families. We will be praying that God will release creative ideas for our time together.

We can also hold a one-day “Sharing Your Faith 101” seminar from our Believers School of Ministry with your congregation in before or during the evangelistic event. The seminar includes lessons on the New Birth, Lifestyle Evangelism, and Nurturing New Believers. After each lesson, we have practice sessions on witnessing and leading others to Christ. I believe that this is an excellent way to prepare your congregation for the evangelistic event and to bring a release of evangelism in your congregation. You can also chose to share videos of these lessons during your midweek services or Bible Studies. Some of these resources are available online:

Believers School of Ministry
Sharing Your Faith as a Lifestyle Audio or Video
How Build Your Church to Grow Audio Podcast

Here are some other thoughts about how you can help to make your event a success:

1. Help your congregation to focus on reaching the lost. Unleash your congregation through encouraging messages from God’s Word about reaching the lost. By projecting a spirit of enthusiasm and by promoting prayer for the upcoming meetings, you can bring the whole congregation into a unity of purpose, and God will bring lasting change to your church. You can use our teaching notes on evangelism to help you to ignite the church.
2. Encourage your congregation to invite their friends, neighbors and relatives. Putting up posters, advertising in the paper, radio and television is an important part of preparation. But in order for the event to be successful, the people of God must get personally involved in reaching out to those around them. This is something that will not only benefit the upcoming meetings, but will reap rich rewards in the life of the church, as God’s people begin to function in their calling to “be witnesses.” As the leader of your congregation, you can implement a strategy for inspiring and training your people to pray, build relationships, and invite others to the evangelistic event. We will help you with some practical ideas and materials for promoting the Festival and activating your church to invite others.
3. Develop a follow up plan on those who receive Christ. We will provide Decision Cards for the names, addresses and phone numbers of those who respond to the altar call. Under the leadership of the pastoral staff, someone from your church can follow up with a phone call within a day of the services and make provision for personal visits when appropriate. You may want to provide a New Believers Bible Study, so that the new converts will have the fellowship and the teaching that they need to grow in Christ.

We have a great opportunity to honor God by cooperating with His plan and reaching others for Jesus Christ. Let’s unite our hearts in prayer, seek him for the specific strategy for your church and community, and expect to see a harvest of souls. I look forward to visiting more with you and working together with you for the glory of our Great God!

Tom Shanklin

Related Information…
We Want to Help YOU Reach YOUR Community
Publicity for Tom and Susan Shanklin Meetings