12
Making Friends for God
SABBATH SCHOOL TOOLBOX
here is nothing new about appeals
for active witnessing in Seventh-
day Adventist churches. This
series of lessons outlines a witnessing
lifestyle that one author calls “gentle
persuasion.”* The following hot buttons
are examples of common issues that
arise when witnessing is discussed in
Sabbath School class.
Hot Button No. 1: Some Sabbath
School members have been through
the experience of having professional
evangelistic teams come to their church
and tell them that they only need their
money, not their help. This issue may arise.
This approach is not relevant to the topics
studied in this series. The lessons focus on
the role of every member as a witness.
Hot Button No. 2: Some church members
feel that the church is interested only in
baptisms and “numbers,” not in caring for
the needs of the members themselves. This
issue arises often when there is an emphasis
on evangelism. This attitude originates
because Adventist publications and internet
resources regularly report statistical results
of large public campaigns led by well-known
Adventist evangelists. Everyone knows that
evangelism and caring for members should
go hand in hand.
Hot Button No. 3: “| am scared to
death to say anything to anyone.” This is
a common problem. All too many church
members have no training or background
in witnessing. This series is an opportunity
to help class members learn how to do
“gentle persuasion.”
Hot Button No. 4: Personal testimony. It
would be a good activity in your class for each
member to develop, write out, and share
personal testimonies. A personal testimony
just says “l used to . . ., but the Lord rescued
me from all that. He can do the same for
you.” A personal testimony is not a sermon
or a Bible study. It is something that comes
from the heart that can be verbalized in any
environment, occasion, or situation.
Hot Button No. 5: Lesson 9 deals with
attitudes. This is a key hot-button issue. How
one presents oneself is just as important, and
maybe more so, than what he or she actually
says. Some people feel they have to “preach”
a “straight message” no matter what the
environment or situation. This is the opposite
end of the spectrum from people who are
“scared” to say anything.
Hot Button No. 6: Lesson 12 may raise
several issues. Some people feel that the
“Advent message,” our understanding
of Bible prophecy and the importance of
the Sabbath and the Second Coming, is
irrelevant in our North American Division
environment and that we need to focus on
something else. Others feel that you have to
introduce immediately things like the “mark
of the beast” or you have not “witnessed.”
This is an opportunity to discuss these
matters and develop some principles about
how to present the teachings of the Seventh-
day Adventist Church. [3
*Joseph C. Aldrich, Gentle Persuasion: Creative
Ways to Introduce Your Friends to Christ (Portland,
Ore: Multnomah Press, 1989).
SABBATH SCHOOL TOOLBOX