Personal Evangelism by Ernest Lloyd

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 12, 1916

Personal Evangelism

By Ernest Lloyd

The great need of our church today is not more organization, but simply more fidelity on the part of each member to the duty of personal evangelism. The duty of preaching the gospel was never committed to a few men or to a special class.

Dr. Trumbull has dealt with this duty of every Christian man and woman, old and young, in his little book, “Individual Work for Individuals.” Every member of the church should read this little volume. Here is its central message:—

“I determined that as I loved Christ, and as Christ loved souls, I would press Christ on the individual soul, so that none who were in the proper sphere of my individual responsibility or influence should lack the opportunity of meeting the question, whether or not they would individually trust and follow Christ. The resolve I made was, that whenever I was in such intimacy with a soul as to be justified in choosing my subject of conversation, the theme of themes should have prominence between us, so that I might learn his need, and, if possible, meet it.

“That decision has largely shaped my Christian life work in the half century that has followed its making. I have not always been faithful in this sphere of Christian service, as, indeed, I have failed or lacked in every other sphere; but my resolve at this point has been adhered to as faithfully as any other resolve I ever made, and I have steadily grown in the conviction that it was a wise resolve. The more extensive and varied has been my experience, and the more I have known of the Christian labors of others, the more positive is my conviction that the winning of one soul to Christ, or of ten thousand souls to Christ, is best done by the effort of an individual with an individual, not by the proclamation of an individual to a multitude, larger or smaller, without the accompanying or following face-to-face pleading with the single soul.

“My experience came to be varied, but in every fresh phase of that experience the preeminent value of work for one soul at a time, over work for a multitude of souls on the same occasion, stands out as the truth beyond challenge or question. This was my conviction in the first days of my Christian consecration. This is my conviction today more positively than ever before. However others may feel about it, I cannot have a doubt on the subject. Winning one soul at a time usually results in the winning of a multitude of souls in the process of time. But addressing a multitude of souls, and urging them all to trust and serve Christ, may not be the means of winning even one soul to Christ, now or at any time.”

The duty of propagating our faith rests upon every one of us. Wilberforce said, “If my faith is false, I ought to change it; if it be true, I am bound to propagate it.” We believe our faith to be true. That conviction, with the constraining love of Christ filling our hearts, will prompt us to give the light to all who do not possess it. Propagation is a law of spiritual life. “The genius of Christianity is expansive.” The religion that would spread among men must be offered by man to man.

This is the great need of the church today. We need more truly eloquent preachers in the pulpit, certainly, but the greater need is for more faithful witnesses in the home, at the office, on the street, in the shop. Our church membership would be doubled, and our problems would be carried a long, long way toward their solution, if every Adventist would make it his chief business to tell others about the meaning of the world’s present situation and try to win them to Christ.

ERNEST LLOYD.