Christian group launches major evangelism thrust
The Errol Rattray Evangelistic Association is working with over 500 churches to stage six citywide crusades and a number of conferences and special events throughout Jamaica. The islandwide crusades, the biggest in the history of the nation, is expected to cost approximately $7 million.
The first crusade will start in Spanish Town later this month at the Jamaica Urban Transport Corp bus park, where dozens of persons were killed in gang feuds earlier this year.
According to Rattray, this evangelical thrust has been sparked by the worsening social and economic condition of the nation in the last few years.
“The fear level has risen among our people, the crime, violence, the murders, the economic situation, people are depressed, the business community is really feeling a lot of pressure and we feel people have to be given hope,” he said.
Through the gospel, he said, people’s lives will be transformed and “they will be able to withstand the pressures of life”.
The Spanish Town crusade will begin April 25 through to May 2. Another will commence in Kingston June 23 to 27. A special men’s crusade, involving about 40 churches, will take place in Highgate, St Mary between July 18 and 25. Other crusades are scheduled for Buff Bay, September 12 to 17; Port Maria, October 3 to 10 and in Santa Cruz, October 24 to 31. In addition the association has planned a number of events, including a boys conference and a men’s conference, both will take place in Kingston and Montego Bay during November. A special men’s rally and health fair/mini expo is scheduled for the Emancipation Park May 29.
At the same time Bishop Peter Morgan, who was the main speaker at a crusade support breakfast following the launch of the Kingston Citywide Crusade, called for Christians to reassess their lives to see if they are truly carrying out the evangelistic mandate of Jesus Christ.
Morgan, the co-founder of Deeper Life Ministries and Secretary of the International Third World Leaders Association, said this mandate was the root solution to the problems in the nation and in many ways the church is falling short.
Referring to the Bible’s Mark 16, verses 15 to18 and Matthew 28 verses 18 to 20, where Jesus sent his disciples to “go into all the world and preach the good news to all creatures and make disciples of all nations,” Bishop Morgan stressed that the Lord’s command was to disciple the nations and not the church.
“We are called nations in heaven, not churches.”
He said many Christians the world over have ‘minimised’ this important mandate.
“One of the problems with the church is that we have embraced Christ, sought to understand the work, the mandate of Christ but we have stopped there. He came and in three and a half years he really initiated a work and a ministry which we must complete,” Morgan said at the breakfast that was put on by the Errol Rattray Evangelistic Association (EREA), at the Medallion Hall Hotel last week.
He added that transformational evangelism can be accomplished only through the Holy Spirit of God and the Word of God.
“While we put a lot of effort in quantity and the growing of our churches, we’ve got to put a lot more effort into shaping quality and quality of life. While we are spending so much of our time preparing people for Heaven we really do need to spend a lot more research and a lot more time into equipping people into being effective on the earth,” he said.
