Episcopal Key '73 Evangelism Should Be Local, Committee Says
Diocesan Press Service. May 31, 1972 [72069]
Benjamin Campbell, The Virginia Churchman
RICHMOND, Va. -- The Episcopal Church's National Advisory Committee on Evangelism has recommended against Episcopal participation on a national level in an evangelistic program called KEY '73.
The committee recommended, however, that "the Church participate . . . at a parochial level or even at a diocesan level, wherever it is possible and appropriate."
KEY '73 is a nationwide evangelistic effort sponsored by some 130 religious groups and aimed at saturating the country with evangelistic messages in 1973. According to the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, an Episcopal laymen's organization which is actively supporting the effort, it is the first such cooperative effort in 22 years.
The idea came from a meeting called by Carl F. H. Henry, former editor of Christianity Today magazine and evangelist Billy Graham at the Key Bridge Marriott motel in Arlington, Virginia, five years ago.
Participation in KEY '73 as a co-sponsoring organization would cost the Episcopal Church between $20, 000 and $40,000, a national church spokesman said. It would also require personnel that are no longer available at the national level, according to the same source.
Bishop Lloyd Gressle of the Diocese of Bethlehem is chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Evangelism. The committee decided on its recommendation to the Presiding Bishop at its May meeting.
According to St. Andrew's Cross, national newspaper of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, KEY '73 is "a unique, simultaneous, continent-wide evangelism thrust in which 130 denominations, church bodies, and para-ecclesiastical groups are participating -- each working individually or in cooperation with other groups or congregations at the community level."
The movement "will be backed up with a mass media program developed by KEY '73 committees," the newspaper said.
In a recent meeting in Atlanta, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church voted to participate. In another Atlanta meeting in April, the American Roman Catholic bishops recommended participation in the program, but left it to individual dioceses to decide just how they would participate.
The National Association of Evangelicals recently voted down a resolution to endorse the program. Some NAE delegates had objected to Roman Catholic participation.
In its recommendations to the Presiding Bishop, the National Advisory Committee on Evangelism said that "because of the structure of our Church with its very limited central and professional staff it is unwise to attempt to participate in the program on the national level."
It asked "that appreciation be expressed to Key '73 for the invitation to join in an effort whose purpose is so significant to the life of all of us."
The committee said it would "continue to work in limited areas of evangelism such as Project Test Pattern, hoping through such efforts to make a contribution to the total mission to which all of us who are Christians are so deeply committed."