A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

he churches can not have evangelists from our own Conference with our principles of faith. Hence it is highly desirable, that our churches be enabled to invite our brethren for evangelistic work. 31 Since no brother was found to serve as conference evangelist, the conference recommended a number of brethren for such a ministry, and also agreed to support evangelists through the Canadian Conference treasury. In many churches, especially those with full-time pastors, another method was adopted to meet the need of an evangelistic emphasis: the Sunday evening services were specifically planned to be evangelistic in nature. This arrangement did not achieve the desired results, however, since unchurched families and other non-Christians would rarely attend a Sunday evening service, although many would come to the morning worship service. This called for a change of 318 HISTORY OF THE MENNONITE BRETHREN CHURCH approach and in some churches the emphasis in the services has been reversed. 2. Era of Conference Evangelists (1954-1972) After 1954 both area conferences became actively interested and involved in evangelism. In the United States At the 1954 General Conference in Hillsboro the U.S. delegates elected a three-man Board of Evangelism. At the United States Con- ference in Reedley three years later the board was enlarged to six, with three brethren appointed by district committees on Home Missions and Evangelism. Loyal A. Funk was elected chairman of the board. He served in that capacity until 1971, when he accepted a pastorate in Vancouver, Canada. Also in 1957 Waldo Wiebe accepted the call to serve as conference evangelist. 32 Brother Wiebe was in great demand and served on both sides of the forty-ninth parallel. In 1959 he reported that during the previous two years he had served in thirty-six evangelistic campaigns — twenty-eight in the United States, and eight in Canada. 33 Reports from the churches and the committee indicated that the ministry of Evangelist Wiebe had resulted in many commitments to Christ. In 1963, after six years of service, Wiebe asked to be released from the ministry, largely because of the serious and prolonged illness of his wife. David J. Wiens, pastor of the Harvey (N.D.) M.B. Church succeeded Wiebe as conference evangelist. Wiens terminated his services in the summer of 1966. A year earlier, in 1965, the Board of Evangelism and the Board of Christian Education had merged in order to facilitate a more coordinated thrust in community outreach. Under the leadership of Elmo Warkentin, the executive secretary of this board, the program of the "Decade of Enlargement" was aggressively promoted. The program was designed to involve every church member and every church agency in winning the people of the community for Christ and the church. 3 ' In response to a 1968 questionnaire seventy-seven Mennonite Brethren churches provided the following information regarding