ST. CHARLES – Members of the Fellowship of Missouri Baptist Evangelists shared their love for proclaiming the gospel with messengers and guests who visited the group’s booth at the Missouri Baptist Convention annual meeting here, Oct. 24-25.
President of the fellowship, Evangelist Jimmy Harriss, said they have an annual meeting of their fellowship in February but always have a presence at the MBC annual meeting. They have members all over the state and from a few surrounding states who do itinerant preaching and music ministry.
Harriss said the group has three priorities: 1) pray for each other, 2) help promote each other’s events and 3) persuade people to get outside of the church walls with events to reach people.
He said evangelism is still the main purpose of the fellowship members, and he sees the shape of their work changing some. He said there are not as many revival meetings being planned as in the past. He does about 20 per year. But he also is involved in about 20 special events each year. These may take the form of a 1-day revival, a weekend revival, a prophecy Sunday, an outdoor festival or a block party.
He likes to work with pastors and churches to be creative in their plans for evangelism. Recently he was invited to Shiloh Baptist Church, Marionville, where they did an outreach event on a grassy lawn at the town fire station. Nearly 40 people showed up to eat some free food, listen to the music and hear a short gospel presentation. He said the key accomplishment was that the church made contacts with lost people in their community.
Harriss is a preaching and music evangelist. He plays the fiddle. Harriss says, “When I play, it is not a violin, but it’s a ‘fiddle.’”
The evangelist added, “I’m as country as mud!”
He does revival meetings and events in the Ozarks and across Missouri pretty much year round. Revival seasons are heavy in the spring and fall of course. Summertime is a great opportunity for special events held outdoors.
Harriss said, “Really I have one message, and that is that Jesus is coming soon.” He said, “We want Him to be happy with us when He comes.”
There are 27 evangelists and evangelist couples who are members of the fellowship. Harriss said, don’t hesitate to ask them to come. They have various policies on expenses and love offerings, but Harriss was confident any of them will work with a church of any size to come and will not be concerned about the size of the love offering or the expense policies.
He said, “The evangelist will ask, ‘What do you want to do?’” And he was confident they will work to help the pastor and church make that happen. “We work on the premise that whatever offering is given is fine, but the main thing is that there is a call from God to go and preach.”
The members of the fellowship invite Missouri Baptists to check out their brochure that is posted on the Missouri Baptist Convention Making Disciples website: https://mobaptist.org/evangelism/evangelists/.