seventy or eighty years. You rarely see a preacher
portrayed in a movie in a positive way. I can't even
remember one movie when a preacher is portrayed in
a positive way. He is portrayed as a weakling, someone
who runs off with the choir director's wife or some
kind of crazy loon. One hundred years ago, pastors
were the most powerful men in the community. When
there was trouble, people went to the pastor. When
there was a crisis, the pastor spoke from the pulpit.
Pastors spoke out against slavery. During the Revolu-
tionary War, many pastors led their congregations to
fight for freedom. Today pastors have been marginal-
ized and a lot of this has to do with the way they
have been portrayed for the last 60-70 years in films.
So the church has been weakened.
I'm not sure that they fully understand what evangelism
they're doing evangelism. It's one thing to have your
church full, but it's another thing to take a church full
of people and mobilize them to go out into the commu-
nity to win that community or city to Christ.
empowered them. I am encouraged. But when I look
at the area of evangelism, years ago there would have
been 10-15 evangelists in this country that were
known and that had strong support. But when you
look today in America, you could probably count them
on one hand. That concerns me. I wish that there
was another generation of young evangelists coming
up. If they're out there I just don't know them yet,
haven't seem them.
Accepting:
instruct & equip