Someday the church will realize that all heaven has been waiting, for more than a century, for a generation of loyal Christ-centered commandment keepers who will understand this "most essental work" and who "represent to the world His Spirit and character" (Christ's Object Lessons, p. 419)
Someday it will become very clear to a significant number of us as Seventh-day Adventists that we are a people with a special message for a special time. Let this sentence burn into our hearts. It means that no other group on earth has been given the assignment that has rested on Seventh-day Adventists for more than a century. When this special message is personally understood, Seventh-day Adventists will not need to be coaxed or threatened to share their faith with others. The experience of understanding this special message, in itself will provide the motivation for Christian witnessing. Holy boldness, gracious and compelling, will then characterize church members who have for too long been overly cautious, timid, and unsure about what it really was they had to share that would grip the world's attention.
Becoming that generation of truly faithful witnesses to the love and power of God is this church's first priority. Institutional growth, pleasing radio and TV programs, social-service activities - all these are important, but without dynamic, effective, person-to-person witnessing, our labors will be in vain. Clouds without rain; promise without fulfillment.
Therefore, personal witnessing, leading individuals to Jesus, is not one of many options a Christian has. A genuine Christian witneses, and his labor bears fruit. Effective witnessing must have highest priority in the serious Christian's life.
To explain how to make this witnessing more effective is the purpose of this manual. We believe that there are thousands of eager church members, young and old, who sense the lateness of the hour in their own lives, as well as for the world, and want to be led into well-directed efforts to contact others for Christ. Plans will have to be carefully laid. Specific territorial assignments should be made and a constant supervision provided by pastors, departmental directors, and administrators.
Ellen White foretold a breakthrough in soul-winning endeavor when Seventh-day Adventists understand their destiny in the "great controversy" and respond with holy boldness and commitment: "When we have entire, wholehearted consecration to the service of Christ, God will recognize the fact by an outpouring of His Spirit without measure; but this will not be while the largest portion of the church are not laborers together with God." (Christian Service p. 253)
God's Spirit adds His umeasured divine efficiency when "we have an enlightened people, that know what it means to be laborers together with God." (Christian Service) What is needed, then, is enlightenment.
While the manual sets forth a three-month training-witnessing period, witnessing must not cease after twelve weeks. Personal witnessing must be the Adventist way of life for everyone, minister and laymen together. It rests with you, my brother, my sister, whether this manual in your hnds will be just another program or whether you will recognize in it those basic elements form the divine blueprint that are to be implemented, refined, and personalized for a finished work.
Many of us are spending precious time and funds doing good things that could be done equally as well by those not blessed with a knowledge of the thid angel's message. Only those who know Christ and the messages of Revelation's three angels (Chap. 14) can give "the witness for which our Lord calls, and for want of which the world is perishing" (The Desire of Ages, p. 340). Let us lay aide what others cn do and deote our energies to "the most essential work," witnessing to the power of our Lord, who wants to "save his people from their sin" (Matt. 1:21); to a loving Lord, who will return to Planet Earth as soon as everyone hs had the opportunity to accept or reject Him as Lord of his life.
Yours for finished work, Robert H. Pierson