Promoting Evangelistic Campaigns
By Lee Wilson

Revivals can be promoted by various means including radio, newspaper, flyers, door knocking and word of mouth. Personal evangelism, or one on one witnessing, is usually the most effective way to share the gospel.

It is important to motivate the saints to be involved in promoting the revival campaign. They can be the key to getting visitors to come. Getting our saints excited about revival should be our first priority in its promotion. This can be accomplished by announcing the meeting many times beforehand, providing flyers for them to distribute and telling them about the positive aspects of the evangelist’s ministry who is coming. Something like, “We’re looking forward to having Bro. Smith with us for revival. God has used him to reach many people in other churches. We’ve heard he is a great preacher. Let’s be sure to get people to come so that this revival can be a benefit not only to us but also to the lost who need God. This would be a great time to bring your friends, relatives and co workers. You never know. God could fill them with the Holy Ghost if they just get into the atmosphere of revival.”

The spiritual preparation for revival should not be forgotten. It really is important, if possible, to have some special time of prayer and fasting for the church. At the least ask the church to fast one day during a week of designated prayer and fasting for the revival. Also, it would be tremendous to get the church ready in their prayer lives before the revival. If the saints are coming early to pray and the prayer meetings are power filled, this is a tremendous advantage to the evangelist. He will be able to ride the anointing and pray folks through more easily.

If there is anything that bogs down revivals, it is the lack of spiritual preparation of the church. If the pastor has called the evangelist to help revive the saints, he shouldn’t expect immediate results in praying new folks through. Often, God works all of this out by giving the evangelist messages to the church when few or no visitors are there and then focusing on the lost when they are present. Sometimes, though, the church is so bogged down spiritually that it is nearly impossible to pray new people through. It’s the pastor’s job to keep the church in a place where the evangelist can help him effectively. The pastor’s job is to feed the sheep and prepare them for growth. The evangelist can help but shouldn’t be expected to do this for the pastor. There are always special circumstances when an evangelist may need to assist a pastor who is in need of special help. However, the norm would be for the evangelist to revive the saints and reach the lost.

The pastor may request a short biographical sketch and some photos from the evangelist which he could use in local publications and in flyer preparation. He may get some information as to how some of his revivals have gone recently to use in exciting the church. (Don’t expect your revival to be the same as that of others, though) If you have a radio program, you could produce an interview with the evangelist or use excerpts from special messages to promote the meeting.

Special services can be very effective in revival promotions. Park services, town hall or plaza meetings and tent meetings can be effective means of getting interest. Many evangelists would be more than willing to be involved in these types of services. You may want to have special services directed to the youth, children or even the singles. Some very effective promotions used to attract visitors would be Friends Sunday with a pot luck afterward or Family Sunday which would be an emphasis on bringing whole families to church (this really works well if you have a Sunday School program that brings unsaved children to church).

There are many good ideas available for special service promotions. Let the evangelist know what you are doing so he can get prepared. Advertise as much as your budget will allow and, above all, get the saints involved in inviting others in spiritual preparation. Having done these things, you will feel confident that you have done your part and whatever else happens in the meeting will be in the hands of God.

Excerpted from “The Work of The Evangelist” ‘A Practical Description of the evangelistic ministry’
By Lee R Wilson

This article may not be written by an Apostolic author, but it contains many excellent principles and concepts that can be adapted to most churches. As the old saying goes, “Eat the meat. Throw away the bones.”