A Pilgrimage Of Faith, J.B. Toews, 1993

e days to each of its twenty-seven congregations for special services. Sixteen leaders-local pastors, Bible school and Bible college teachers-were named as the evangelists and Bible conference speakers.6 Bible schools nourished the spirit of outreach. From the 1930s through the 1950s, courses in personal evangelism were a regular offering. The Pacific Bible Institute reported in 1953 that students in the previous school year counseled with 575 people, distributed forty thousand tracts, three thousand Gospels of John and twenty New Testaments, and through this activity 225 people made professions of faith. The Bible schools also promoted children's work in the form of vacation Bible schools and Bible club programs that continued into the regular school season.7 The Task of the Local Church In the years before I960, Mennonite Brethren evangelistic activity was solidly rooted in the local church and conference. In the homogeneous communities, with their close cultural, economic and occupational interdependence, the line separat- ing "saved and unsaved,11 "believers and unbelievers," seemed clear even if sometimes experientially interpreted. If, during the frequent public revival meetings, the unsaved of the com- munity failed to respond, the nagging question was less likely to be one of strategy but rather, "What hindrances in the church prevent the Holy Spirit from leading sinners to re pen 241 A PILGRIMAGE OF FAJTH tance?" The church understood, as Geoige W. Webber would declare later, that "demonstration precedes proclamation. w* The church could meaningfully invite others to faith only when it had authentically demonstrated the power of redemp- tion itself. The spiritual status of the church was seen as directly re- lated to the response of the unsaved to the gospel Revival campaigns lasting from seven to fourteen days were not only an invitation to the unsaved but also a challenge for the church to examine its own faithfulness. Frequently the entire first half of such campaigns would be a ringing call to self-ex- amination, for repentance from worldliness (defined as ethical lapses, unfaithful stewardship and neglect of devotional life) and for shortfalls in personal and family relationships. In this, the Mennonite Brethren were reflecting a truth that has char- acterized all the great revivals in Christian history-repentance for sin and the subsequent change in relationship with a Holy God is foundational to effective evangelism.9 The Mennonite Brethren of times past grasped an impor- tant first century insight: the purpose and strategy of evange- lis