AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PASTOR FROM THE EVANGELIST
The following letter was born out of the Evangelists’ Seminar of December, 1982. Not every sentence will relate to every pastor. It has been written from the point of briefly touching several major areas of pastor/evangelist relationships.
Dear Pastor:
Greetings in the lovely name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are really looking forward to our upcoming revival with you and your church.
It is our sincere desire that souls be reached during this revival. Revival depends on prayer and seeking God. I would ask if there is time for leisure, let us use that time for praying and visiting people. Reaching the lost and dying is an awesome responsibility.
As a servant to your church and God, I feel my obligation to seek the face of God every day. Please don’t let my absence keep you from doing what you have to do. You can just leave me to myself; I’ll pray and study.
We are coming to have a revival, not merely as guests but servants! We do want to work with you. Please don’t tell me any of the major problems with the people of your church; let God deal with me if He wants me to preach on some special thing. It is best I know nothing of anyone.
Let us both allow God to say what He wants during this revival. If you question something I said during the services, please feel free to talk to me. It may be that I made a mistake or was thinking faster than I was talking. I assure you, I am not one who cannot reason or understand my brother’s feelings. On the other hand, do not feel that I am not the preacher you expected because of differences in convictions we may have talked about.
Let’s reach for a sinner. If you could, please start some home Bible studies or some type of outreach to prepare us a field to harvest! Please don’t wait until we get there to begin to reach out and bring sinners.
We will be arriving on Tuesday prior to our meeting that is beginning on Wednesday. I am so thankful you didn’t decide to start on Sunday, for it is very hard to close on a Sunday and have 5 days without a place to preach until we start again. Beginning our meeting two days after closing our last revival allows us the time to travel.
We are looking forward to being with you in this revival. My wife will be glad to help your wife any way she can during this time. We would really appreciate using your washer and dryer, especially for our good clothes, if this is not too much of an inconvenience.
Brother Pastor, as considering what would be a fair wage—for the laborer is worthy of his hire—I ask only that you consider the total needs of my family.
I do have expenses just as anyone else. I am not trying to live high, but want to be able to hold my head high because my financial obligations are met! Brother Pastor, I would never ask for any set amount because then my faith would not be in operation, but please at least allow me the security of paying my bills, buying family necessities and having enough money between revivals. Special times of the year such as Camp Meetings, Conferences, and Christmas usually are times when we have extra expenses with no income to offset the expense. Your consideration in this matter is appreciated.
We will be bringing our 32 ft. mobile home; this is our home. It will make it easier on your church and household as far as having to make accommodations. Thank you for realizing the extra expenses involved in pulling a mobile home—the extra gas consumption, payment, insurance, etc. We will need water, sewer and a 110 volt (or 220) electrical hook-up for our trailer. Thank you again for having these small needs prepared before we get there.
We are open to however your church wants to work with the food. We will eat most of our primary meals in our trailer as it will be easier on both of our schedules. We are thankful for any groceries brought in and my wife will be pleased to give you a list of needed things. If you feel it would be easier, you could arrange for us to receive “grocery money” instead.
I am thankful for capable leadership like yours and an established church to come to and have revival. Thank you for your kindness, it is more than we deserve. See you soon, Lord willing.
For Apostolic revival,
Brother Evangelist
