WARRENTON – “After pastoring for 42 years the Lord led me to hang up my pastor hat and start traveling as an evangelist as well as to do mission work,” says Roger Alford, a member of the Missouri Baptist Convention’s Fellowship of Missouri Baptist Evangelists.
It was 10 years ago Alford moved from the pulpit into evangelism to start leading New Faith Ministries (NFM), which conducts church revivals, tent revivals, home groups, and one-on-one soul winning.
He has 12 to 20 events a year, working with the lost and saved, churched and unchurched, adults and children. “Some last one day or a week”, he says, “in a stadium or a small group…evangelistic crusades, church growth conferences, marriage conferences, soul winning clinics, pastor/leadership training.”
The events are sometimes conducted alone and other times with partners in NFM. “Sometimes I take a team. It contains a prayer coordinator who prays during the service, and after the service in an afterglow session and in homes during the week. It also contains an outreach director, who arrives on the field a few days before the event to go door to door passing out flyers and evangelizing in homes, oftentimes taking church members with him.”
Roger Alford
“We offer a full a full package to help a church experience real revival.” That also includes providing a music leader, says Alford, whose home church is Fellowship Baptist in Warrenton.
Alford says an evangelist’s job is threefold.
“The evangelist not only is used to help people meet Christ, but also to model to the members how souls can be won, and also to motivate the members to reach out to the lost.”
A challenge he faces “is overcoming the lack of a burden for lost souls among Christians.” But, that’s what energizes him. “What I enjoy most about being an evangelist is seeing a lost person get saved and seeing a Christian set on fire for God.”
He admits that churches today don’t schedule as many revivals as they used to. That is also a challenge because he only goes where he’s invited.
His work is funded largely from love offerings and individual donations. He charges no fee for his revivals. That, he says, should encourage others who feel called to minister.
“Where God leads, God feeds. Where God guides, God provides,” he says. “I go wherever God opens the door, trusting Him to supply physical and spiritual needs.”
Alford is bilingual, fluently speaking Spanish as well as English. That gives him more ministry opportunities.
“I get lots of opportunities to minister in Spanish, both in the USA and abroad. Sometimes I lead mission trips. We do a variety of ministry in foreign countries, including evangelism.”
He’s also a multi-book author. His first book, Pastoring Is Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be…It’s More, shares practical lessons he learned in his decades of pastoring.
He hopes it encourages pastors and “gives them motivation to pastor better, to evangelize and train their flock to evangelize.” In addition, he says it will help church members better understand their pastor’s role.
A second book, 14 Lessons I Learned From Heart Surgery, is a testimony of surviving a heart attack and open-heart surgery. He wrote it to encourage others going through that experience. Both books are available through Amazon.
His third book, Eyewitness Account of Miracles on The Mission Field, describes miracles – salvations, healings, financial, marital, and others – he saw during missionary travels.
“It testifies to the fact that our God is the same God we read about in Bible days,” he says. It’s available directly from Alford.
All his books are published in English and Spanish editions.
Alford can be contacted via email at rgralford@yahoo.com or by phone: 620-285-1102.
His website is www.newfaithministries.net.