Helping New Believers to Win Souls
Minister to Educate New Believers in Soul Winning—Place after place is to be visited; church after church is to be raised up. Those who take their stand for the truth are to be organized into churches, and then the minister is to pass on to other equally important fields.Ev 353.3
Just as soon as a church is organized, let the minister set the members at work. They will need to be taught how to labor successfully....Ev 353.4
The power of the gospel is to come upon the companies raised up, fitting them for service. Some of the new converts will be so filled with the power of God that they will at once enter the work. They will labor so diligently that they will have neither time nor disposition to weaken the hands of their brethren by unkind criticism. Their one desire will be to carry the truth to the regions beyond.—Testimonies For The Church 7:20 (1902).Ev 354.1
Stress Personal Responsibility to God—Personal responsibility, personal activity in seeking the salvation of others, must be the education given to all newly come to the faith.... Personal faith is to be acted and practiced, personal holiness is to be cultivated, and the meekness and lowliness of Christ is to become a part of our practical life. The work is to be thorough and deep in the heart of every human agent.Ev 354.2
Those who profess to receive and believe the truth are to be shown the deadly influence of selfishness and its tainting, corrupting power. The Holy Spirit must work upon the human agent, else another power will control mind and judgment. Spiritual knowledge of God and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent is the only hope of the soul. Each soul is to be taught of God, line upon line, precept upon precept; he must feel his individual accountability to God to engage in service for his Master, whose he is, and whom he is required to serve in the work of saving souls from death.—Manuscript 25, 1899.Ev 354.3
Baptismal Vows—Pledge to Win Souls—God's people are to feel a noble, generous sympathy for every line of work carried on in the great harvest field. By their baptismal vows they are pledged to make earnest, self-denying efforts to promote, in the hardest parts of the field, the work of soulsaving. God has placed on every believer the responsibility of striving to rescue the helpless and the oppressed.—(Australasian) Union Conference Record, June 1, 1903.Ev 354.4
Truly Converted Will Work for Others—Divine grace in the newly converted soul is progressive. It gives an increase of grace, which is received, not to be hidden under a bushel, but to be imparted, that others may be benefited. He who is truly converted will work to save others who are in darkness. One truly converted soul will reach out in faith to save another and still another. Those who do this are God's agencies, His sons and daughters. They are a part of His great firm, and their work is to help to repair the breach which Satan and his agencies have made in the law of God by trampling underfoot the genuine Sabbath, and putting in its place a spurious rest day.—Letter 29, 1900.Ev 355.1
Why Some New Believers Do Not Advance—Humble, simplehearted, trusting souls may do a work which will cause rejoicing in heaven among the angels of God. Their work at home, in their neighborhood, and in the church will be in its results as far-reaching as eternity. It is because this work is not done that the experience of young converts never reaches beyond the ABC in divine things. They are always babes, always needing to be fed upon milk, and never able to partake of true gospel meat.—Letter 61, 1895.Ev 355.2
Confirmed in the Faith by Service—When souls are converted, set them to work at once. And as they labor according to their ability, they will grow stronger. It is by meeting opposing influences that we become confirmed in the faith. As the light shines into their hearts, let them diffuse its rays. Teach the newly converted that they are to enter into fellowship with Christ, to be His witnesses, and to make Him known unto the world.Ev 355.3
None should be forward to enter into controversy, but they should tell the simple story of the love of Jesus. All should constantly search the Scriptures for the reason of their faith, so that, if asked, they may give “a reason of the hope that is in them, with meekness and fear.”Ev 356.1
The best medicine you can give the church is not preaching or sermonizing, but planning work for them. If set to work, the despondent would soon forget their despondency, the weak would become strong, the ignorant intelligent, and all would be prepared to present the truth as it is in Jesus. They would find an unfailing helper in Him who has promised to save all who come unto Him.—The Review and Herald, June 25, 1895.Ev 356.2
Relation of Activity to Spirituality—Those who are most actively employed in doing with interested fidelity their work to win souls to Jesus Christ, are the best developed in spirituality and devotion. Their very active working formed the means of their spirituality. There is danger of religion losing in depth that which it gains in breadth. This need not be, if, in the place of long sermons, there is wise education given to those newly come to the faith. Teach them by giving them something to do, in some line of spiritual work, that their first love will not die but increase in fervor. Let them feel that they are not to be carried and to lean for support on the church; but they are to have root in themselves. They can be in many lines, according to their several abilities, useful in helping the church to come nearer to God, and working in various ways to act upon the elements outside the church which will be a means of acting beneficially upon the church. The wisdom and prosperity of the church casts a telling influence upon her favor. The psalmist prayed for the prosperity of the church, “God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause His face to shine upon us.... That Thy way may be known upon the earth, Thy saving health among all nations.”—Letter 44, 1892.Ev 356.3
Christian Growth Will Be Evident—Nothing saps spirituality from the soul more quickly than to enclose it in selfishness and self-caring. Those who indulge self and neglect to care for the souls and bodies of those for whom Christ has given His life, are not eating of the bread of life, nor drinking of the water of the well of salvation. They are dry and sapless, like a tree that bears no fruit. They are spiritual dwarfs, who consume their means on self; but “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”Ev 357.1
Christian principles will always be made visible. In a thousand ways the inward principles will be made manifest. Christ abiding in the soul is as a well that never runs dry.—The Review and Herald, January 15, 1895.Ev 357.2
To Keep the Church Alive by Service—Let him seek to keep the church alive by teaching its members how to labor with him for the conversion of sinners. This is good generalship; and the result will be found far better than if he should seek to perform the work alone.—The Review and Herald, April 23, 1908.Ev 357.3