Personal Evangelism for Pastors

The purpose of this study was to determine the nature of a relationship between pastoral personal evangelism and baptisms in selected Southern Baptist congregations. Data on pastoral personal evangelism was obtained from a multiple response survey instrument. Pastors (N = 314) of churches averaging five hundred to one thousand in Sunday School participated in the study. The nature of the relationship between pastoral personal evangelism and baptisms was examined by the use of the survey instrument assembled for the study. From the survey data, the researcher noted a relationship between pastoral personal evangelism and baptisms in churches led by participating pastors using Pearson product-correlation coefficient. Among the three composites of pastoral personal evangelism measured by the survey instrument, a multiple regression analysis identified pastoral practice of personal evangelism as the strongest predictor of baptisms, followed by pastoral preaching and pastoral teaching, respectively.