Protestants Plan Talks on Evangelism

CHICAGO — In an unusual show of cooperation, representatives of more than 25 evangelical and mainline Protestant bodies have agreed to form a network to share plans and ideas on evangelism and “church-planting.”

“We have no burning desire to start a new organization or to go to a lot of meetings. We’re interested in being in touch with one another,” said the Rev. Billy A. Melvin, executive director of the National Assn. of Evangelicals, emphasizing the informal linkage agreed to by participants in a recent meeting here.

The session on “Evangelizing America by the Year 2000” was called by Melvin and five denominational evangelism executives. It was a follow-up to a meeting last fall spearheaded by the Rev. Larry Lewis, president of the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Many of the participants represented National Assn. of Evangelicals members. But the network represents an effort to bring about cooperation among evangelism officials from a broader spectrum of Protestants, including mainline denominations affiliated with the National Council of Churches.

National Council members participating included the American Baptist Churches, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Reformed Church in America.

The meeting was an unusual sign of cooperation among groups that have traditionally viewed themselves more as competitors than as fellow travelers in reaching out to the unchurched. It focused on coordinating the evangelization and church-planting programs that many of the churches have linked directly to the year 2000.

Melvin said it has been almost 20 years--dating back to the “Key 73” evangelism gathering in Kansas City in 1973--since there has been such cooperation between the evangelical and mainline denominations on the subject of evangelization.