What do you call an event that brings together Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tenn., Southern Union Conference in Norcross, Ga., Gulf States Conference in Montgomery, Ala., and six local churches along the Gulf Coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida? It is the 2017 Field School of Evangelism, which seeks to give aspiring theology students the real-life experience of preaching and teaching the Word of God to live audiences, bringing about life-eternal opportunities. It is an event that is held every year by the Theology Department at Southern Adventist University in different conferences of the Southern Union, and many are fortunate to have this higher school of learning so near.
Gulf States Conference welcomes Roger Hernandez, Southern Union ministerial director, and Douglas Jacobs, D.Min., professor of ministry and homiletics at Southern Adventist University, to its territory as part of the ongoing event. Outreach kicked off while students were on spring break in March, enabling them to travel to the local churches to help with revival and reformation. July 15-22, Hernandez will host a series of evangelism meetings in Pensacola, Fla., and the students will begin in their host churches with their own series of evangelistic meetings on July 20.
Logistically, it is a huge amount of work to coordinate all these students and three different entities, but Jacobs and Alan Parker, D.Th., professor of missions and evangelism at Southern, have been working with Gulf States Conference for more than a year. The churches involved are University and Blue Angel Parkway, both in Pensacola; Cody Road Church in Mobile, Ala.; St. Elmo in Irvington, Ala.; Pascagoula in Pascadoula, Miss.; and Fort Walton Beach Church in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. Area pastors involved are Jeff Crain, Andre Weston, Eliseo Garcia, Ted Struntz, and Dan Thompson.
In chapter 25 of Testimonies 5, “Christian Unity,” Ellen White advises, “All who have been benefited by the labors of God’s servant should, according to their ability, unite with him in working for the salvation of souls. This is the work of all true believers, ministers, and people. They should keep the grand object ever in view, each seeking to fill his proper position in the church, and all working together in order, harmony, and love.” This evangelism event will give opportunity for the church members to host some of the students in their homes, the churches to open up their doors to welcome the guests anticipated to come to the meetings, and the members to actively seek out those who God would have come.
Please pray with Gulf States Conference that God will use these young scholars, along with the pastors and church members, to once again call onto all people, “… Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water,” Revelation 14:7 (NKJV).
Gulf States | April 2017
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