By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor
ALEXANDRIA, La. (LBM) – M.E. Dodd, the former pastor of First Baptist Church, Shreveport, is most often celebrated for his leadership in establishing the Cooperative Program, Baptists’ primary funding channel for state and national cooperative missions and ministries, but the focus of his efforts on this initiative is too often underemphasized – soul winning.
Indeed, Dodd’s entire ministry was defined by soul winning.
During his first month with FBCS, he preached a revival, adding 98 new believers to the 600-member congregation. In early 1918 (as WWI raged), he volunteered to be a U.S. Army chaplain, eventually settling to be a camp religious worker with the YMCA attached to the Second Army and recorded 5,000 professions of faith that year. For the duration of his 50 years of ministry, he recorded 7,000 baptisms.
Importantly, as part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention, Dodd led a South-wide simultaneous crusade with “the ideal of at least one revival in every church throughout the South in 1945.” Especially noteworthy, his detailed plans for organizing the yearlong South-wide simultaneous crusade included at the church level “a band of personal soul-winners as prayer partners.”
Moreover, the soul winning Dodd became fast friends with Evangelist Billy Graham, inviting the venerable revivalist to conduct a 1951 campaign in Shreveport. In news reports at that time, Dodd recounted a visit to Fort Worth, Texas, to conference with Dr. Graham and to aend one of the services there.
“There is only one explanation to Billy Graham,” Dodd said. “He’s a God-intoxicated man. He ascribes all his power and influence and success to God. He urges everybody over and over to pray and pray more and pray more earnestly.”
It might seem odd in the middle of a series of articles about the mechanics of evangelism to emphasize the need for prayer. But this series was launched on the premise that evangelism begins with a humble heart. “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves … (2 Chronicle 7:14). What follows when this spiritual condition is met is prayer and seeking the face of God, two intertwined spiritual processes (“communicating with God” with the desire to “grow closer to Him”).
Notably, M.E. Dodd and Billy Graham acknowledged prayer as an essential element in their respective soul winning efforts because of Christ’s example. Jesus defined Himself as a soul winner (“for the Son of man has come to seek and save that which is lost,” Luke 19:10) and immediately after the Last Supper during which He taught some last lessons to His
apostles and right before He went to the Garden of Gethsemane to be betrayed, Jesus declared that He prays “for those who will believe in Me through their word” (John 17:20).
Earlier this year, Ouachita Baptist Church in West Monroe was preparing along with five other congregations to take part in an area-wide crusade that was scheduled for March 30-April 2, with their preparations anchored in focused prayer. The crusade was successful, drawing about 400 for each of the services and producing 10 salvation decisions. But the Ouachita congregation experienced an unexpected blessing from the Holy Spirit during the two months of prayer ahead of the crusade – 20 salvation decisions and multiple other spiritual commitments.
Prayer precedes soul winning.
— Pray for God’s will to be revealed.
— Pray to be in His will.
— Pray for personal revival.
— Pray for an awakening among the lost.
— Pray for the lost in general.
— Pray for the lost by name.
— Pray for a harvest among men.
— Pray for laborers to reap the harvest.
Most importantly, pray believing that you will receive these things “and you will have them,” according to the Word of God (Mark 11:24).
