Evangelism Conferences Held In West Missouri

Episcopal News Service. May 3, 1979 [79132]

W. Clark Hendley

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Diocese of West Missouri kicked off a two-year evangelism program this spring with "Sharing Your Faith," a conference designed to show Episcopalians how to equip themselves to spread the good news.

Because of the large area covered by the diocese, "Sharing Your Faith" was held twice, once in Kansas City and once in Springfield, thus enabling as many communicants as possible to participate in this major thrust by the diocese. Well over 200 people from 31 parishes participated in one of the two-day programs.

The conference, planned by the diocesan department of evangelism under the leadership of the Rev. John Lambert, All Saints, Kansas City, featured the Rev. A. Wayne Schwab, Evangelism Officer at the Episcopal Church Center.

Father Schwab led participants in learning how to tell their own stories to others, the necessary first step in sharing the faith. Working through slides, films, charts, and a multitude of statistics, he described the decline in active membership in the Episcopal Church while displaying the phenomenal growth of denominations with aggressive evangelism programs.

Father Schwab noted to West Missourians that "Episcopalians exhibit a peculiar kind of 'studied secularity.' We almost bend over backwards to avoid religious language. Evangelism and renewal call us to become much more articulate about our own religious experience and about our sense of God's, Christ's, or the Holy Spirit's presence and action in our personal and social lives. Reserve is Anglican. Muteness is not."

The Rt. Rev. Arthur A. Vogel, Bishop of West Missouri, was in attendance at both sessions of "Sharing Your Faith" to lend his support to the work of the department of Evangelism. Regarding the message of the conference Bishop Vogel commented, "Faith, as our lives, must be shared. We live in order to share with others the love God reveals in Christ by the power of the Spirit. A great renewal of faith is sweeping the church today; the Spirit is moving ever more people to witness to their faith and to the gift of new life God makes available to them in Jesus our Savior. A conference such as this one equips us all to be better witnesses to others."

The Department of Evangelism is currently planning follow-up programs for next fall and the following spring as West Missourians learn both how to be good evangelists and to be true to their Anglican tradition.

[thumbnail: Music for two