 
Resources for Congregations Knox Fellowship: 2,000 helping hands for evangelism By John H. Adams The Presbyterian Layman |
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WAYNESVILLE, N.C. – After directing NASA’s lunar landing program, Frank Dixon became an executive for the Singer Corporation in charge of computer programmers. The programmers were a dedicated group, committed to excellence and perfection. They would not allow any program to leave until all the bugs had been exterminated. Consequently, few programs got out of the brain center and other Singer enterprises lagged. Dixon, a Ph.D. physicist, decided that perfection was costing more than a few irritating bugs. So he instructed the programmers to release their software when they could detect no more than three errors. That cut program development time and cost in half and put software in application. Dixon’s business experience serves also as a model for his volunteer vocation, evangelism: You don’t have to be perfect to do what God commands — whether accepting the summons to believe in Christ or proclaiming the good news to others. Dixon is a lay minister and former chairman of Knox Fellowship, an independent PCUSA renewal ministry that helps local congregations actually do something about the first of the great ends of the church: “the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind.” Membership loss reversible In effect, Knox Fellowship is trying to revive a lost art. While many evangelical churches in the PCUSA are growing, largely because of their commitment to proclaim the gospel, the overall statistics show an ongoing shrinkage and an aging remnant. Since reunion of the United Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church US in 1983, Presbyterian membership has dropped 16.7 percent: from 3.1 million to 2.6 million. The trend is reversible, says Dixon and others who are convinced that the church’s hope for replenishment of membership and zeal lies in presenting the gospel. Knox, which will soon begin its 10th year as an organization, has enlisted more than 1,000 people — that’s 2,000 helping hands — in its evangelistic ministry. Those individuals, including Dixon, visit local churches, lead evangelistic weekends and boldly declare that churches utilizing Knox Fellowship ministry teams “shall experience” a membership growth of 30 percent within five years. During a recent Knox Fellowship weekend at First Presbyterian Church in Waynesville, N.C., Dixon and two other Knox leaders, Frank William “Bill” Schahn and Norma Ray Colandreo, cast their nets to boost the congregation’s growth. Dixon served as moderator for the weekend’s activities. Colandreo, a public school teacher, led the children’s ministry. Schahn, the George Beverly Shea of Presbyterian evangelism, led the singing. They got an assist for attracting young people from a local Christian rock group. There’s no old-fogeyism in Knox’s evangelism. But there is a connecting thread of Presbyterianism. Lay people tell their stories and take leadership, but a Presbyterian minister does the preaching. For Waynesville, the preacher was David Bierschwale, pastor of two nearby churches. Faith journeys The Knox Fellowship style is personal and friendly, from the narratives about Knox members’ “faith journeys” to “visioning sessions” that encourage the local congregation to establish some priorities on membership and evangelism. The preaching provides biblical guidelines to shape those priorities. The Knox team essentially challenges and facilitates the local church’s commitment to evangelism. And it welcomes local Christians into its ministry. At Waynesville, one of the faith journey messages was given by Nelly Geneva, a Bulgarian who was involved in the underground church movement during Bulgaria’s Communist dictatorship. She attends First Presbyterian in Waynesville while she resides in the United States. Geneva tells a harrowing story about her experiences as a Christian in Bulgaria and the threats and scorn that came from the Communist Party. (After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the communists regained power in Bulgaria, but they were defeated in the recent elections.) She spoke painfully of the cooperation between the Bulgarian government and the officially recognized Orthodox Church. “The government and the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church had a contract,” she said. “No regular services were to be held. There was no preaching from the Bible.” Underground Church Geneva says she discovered the underground, Protestant church in Bulgaria. “In great secrecy, I started a Bible class in my home,” she says. “We talked about God and I shared my feelings with them. Why, I asked, should we praise the Communist Party and its leader when we have a Lord to praise?” American friends whom she had met through her work as a book editor provided her with video cassettes about evangelical churches in the United States. That buoyed her commitment to Bulgaria’s underground church. On one occasion, she says her American friends arranged for a shipment of Bibles to be hidden in a truckload of used clothing being sent to orphans. Her assignment was to get the shipment past customs. Providentially, the inspector was a former schoolmate. With a smile, she noted that “in Bulgaria, we say that everything is possible by friendship.” The agent thought that the truck contained clothing alone. “I knew that between the clothing there were Bibles, but I had no idea that there were 5,000 on this truck. What a beautiful reminder to me that God was taking care of his people.” Geneva hopes to return to Bulgaria. Knox Fellowship grew out of a prayer gathering in Montreat, NC, in 1989. The participants decided to form a fellowship committed to assisting churches in evangelism. The organization is led by an 18-member board of directors. The chairman of the board is Roxie Davis, co-executive presbyter of the Central Nebraska Presbytery. Rev. Robert Pittman is president. Knox identifies three elements of a vital ministry: 1) Jesus Christ is exalted as He is presented in the scriptures; 2) the word of God is the authority for faith and life; and 3) prayer is an energizing force in the church. Knox Fellowship is headquartered at 500 Airport Boulevard, Suite 329, Burlingame, CA 94010. Knox has a Internet site at http://members.aol.com/knoxfellow/knox.html |
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The Presbyterian Layman, July/August 1998 contents |
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