DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.(LWCR)—FAITH was dead when Mike Napier
arrived at First Baptist Church in Owasso, Okla., in 2001 as the
new minister of education and outreach. Now, three years later,
FAITH is thriving, with 43 active teams—a total of 129
people.
The church had used the FAITH Sunday School Evangelism
Strategy® for three semesters before Napier’s arrival, with
little success. Now FAITH prospers at the church. Napier led a
class on “How to Revitalize Your FAITH Ministry” during
the National FAITH Institute Jan. 24-27 at First Baptist Church,
Daytona Beach.
FAITH is a strategy created by LifeWay Christian Resources of
the Southern Baptist Convention that combines Sunday school with
evangelism. It uses the acrostic F-A-I-T-H (forgiveness,
available, impossible, turn and heaven) as a tool for leading
people to a point of receiving Jesus Christ as Savior.
“I asked the pastor [Roger Ferguson] if he would be
willing to let me try to resurrect our FAITH ministry,”
Napier said. “He said I could.”
Napier began looking at what was happening, and he discovered
that the FAITH formula of having a meal, a training period,
visitation time and celebration wasn’t being followed. The
few functioning teams were meeting on Wednesday nights on an
abbreviated schedule with all the other Wednesday night
activities going on around them.
“I got the two best FAITH guys in the church and took
them with me to a FAITH clinic as alumni,” Napier said.
“The LifeWay folks at the clinic helped us diagnose what was
going wrong and gave us some tips on how to fix it.”
The men went back to Owasso with a renewed commitment to the
strategy. Some of the FAITH team members weren’t ready to
give up the Wednesday night group, so Napier let them continue,
but added a new FAITH group on Monday nights. This one followed
the formula, and it thrived.
“People began to see great results and enjoyed the whole
experience,” Napier said. “Pretty soon, everyone wanted
to do the Monday night FAITH, so the ineffective Wednesday night
group disbanded.”
Napier spearheaded a discussion at the institute with class
participants about ways to encourage success in their churches’
FAITH ministries. He gave participants these suggestions:
• The senior pastor has to believe in FAITH and be willing
to rally his people around it. “The pastor has the authority
to tell every staff member to clear his calendar and lead a FAITH
team.”
• Every semester, rotate the FAITH teams. “If you go
more than a semester with the same team, you have a clique.”
• Cultivate the team leaders so they, in turn, will
cultivate their teams. “Keep in touch with them. Call them
and tell them you are looking forward to seeing them on [whatever]
night, that you’re looking forward to making the visits.”
• Use events such as Vacation Bible School, Upward
Basketball and fall festivals to discover prospects. “Have
people register at every event. Then take that registration
information and turn it into FAITH cards.”
• Take advantage of public record information. “Go to
your water company, for example, and get a copy of the new
households in your zip code, then go make a welcome visit to
those people.”
• Do something to show all the team members they are special.
“I do a FAITH newsletter that we hand out every Monday night
at the FAITH meal. I include team members’ birthdays on it.
When we get there, we sing ‘Happy Birthday’ and just
make a big deal out of it. You tell me anyone who wouldn’t
want to be there for that.”
Napier believes everything in FAITH rises and falls on the
leadership.
“You say, ‘I’m tired and I don’t want to
go. I don’t want to be excited anymore,’ but I say,
‘You don’t have that option!’” Napier said.
“People are out there who need to be reached.”
To learn more about FAITH evangelism strategy, go to www.LifeWay.com.
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