The Week that Almost Wasn’t

Malay-Chinese race riots in Singapore left twenty-two dead, hundreds injured, and a unique evangelistic project in jeopardy last month.

The threat melted into victory, however, as the Asian Evangelists Crusade began on schedule and drew 4,000 persons nightly to the Singapore National Theater. The crowds were easily the largest ever to gather for gospel services in the city’s history.

Yet less than twenty-four hours before the start of the crusade a curfew had been in effect that kept all of Singapore’s population indoors nightly. The fifteen evangelists from seven countries who pooled their efforts to sponsor the crusade had seriously considered calling the whole thing off. No one knew how long the curfew would continue, or whether the riots would flare anew!

On August 1, the crusade’s opening day, it was announced that the curfew would be lifted until midnight. The group regarded it as a spectacular answer to prayer that the curfew lifted for the entire week of the meetings—dates which had been set a year in advance—before public meetings were again banned because of further disturbances.

The crusade, planned in conjunction with the Asian Evangelists Conference the following week, featured a different country each night, with an evangelist from that country as speaker. Represented were Formosa, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. A total of 903 persons registered decisions for Christ and were individually counseled in one of four languages. The evangelistic campaign was the first ever sponsored by Singapore churches.

Television Crusade

One-hour telecasts on some 200 stations across North America this week will enable millions to share the benefits of evangelist Billy Graham’s July crusade in Columbus, Ohio.

In most areas the telecasts will be seen on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings (September 8–10).

The television audience will hear three of the sermons Graham preached in Columbus. Meanwhile, the evangelist will conduct crusades this month in Omaha and Boston.

A corps of young people distributed 100,000 handbills and tickets house to house. There were more than 400 counselors and some 250 choir members.

At the three-day evangelists’ conference the following week, participants hammered out a bold strategy to reach Asia’s increasing millions with the Gospel. They adopted a six-point program:

—Sponsor biennial campaigns and conferences in key Asian cities.

—Conduct city-wide gospel rallies.

—Form and encourage the dispatch of international gospel teams.

—Promote systematic village evangelism.

—Encourage and train a new crop of evangelists.

—Operate a clearing house for information and intercessory prayer.

The conference was planned by a committee of missionaries and laymen, including representatives of Malaya Evangelistic Fellowship, The Navigators, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, Singapore Bible College, and Singapore Youth for Christ.

Navigators representative Roy Robertson noted the need to promote with national evangelists a “more aggressive, coordinated program for public proclamation of the Word.”

Much of the committee’s action is credited to the spearheading influence of evangelist Gregorio Tingson of the Philippines, who insists that nationals take responsibility for stepping up Asian evangelism.

Another result of the conference was the establishment of an Asian Evangelists Commission, which promptly began laying plans for a crusade and conference in Bombay in the spring of 1966.

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