Page 10 - Introduction to New Jerusalem Evangelism

Chapter 1
Historical Periods and Features of Evangelical Services

1. Introduction and Classification.
The journey of evangelical services of (International) New Jerusalem Evangelism (NJE)
for more than the past 2 (two) decades, since its establishment in 1999 until the
pandemic Covid -19 travel bans and restrictions, can be divided into 3 (three) main
historical periods. Each period has the special characteristics and features.
The first period showed mainly the characteristics of coverage area i.e. the
evangelical services that reached and covered all provinces of Indonesia, meaning that
NJE’s evangelical coverage had reached the national level for the first time in its entire
historical journey. The greatest challenge was to start the ‘first step’, in other words,
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to rotate the first 360 rotation just as pushing forward manually a car with a
breakdown machine. Afterwards NJE had entered the condition with the wheel
rotations which rolled more and more smoothly, faster and faster. The interference
and touching of the invisible hand of God were felt deeply and followed accordingly.
This could be seen clearly when the mode of transportation of NJE’s evangelical team
started to change from car-and-ship to car-and-aeroplane. Truly speaking this was a
miracle since the flight ticket prices at that time were not cheap. Indonesia had just
passed the peak of Asian economic crisis since 1998 and was still struggling to survive
and to stabilize its economic, political and social conditions. There had not been many
airlines operating in the country. After 2001 some new airlines were established and
have been in operation until now. Furthermore, number of NJE’s members was still
very small. This miracle was completed by the successful achievement of the following
mission: ‘carrying and preaching the Good News (implementing the Great Commission
of Jesus Christ)’ to all provinces of Indonesia at the end of year 2003, by means of
crusades in one city in one province each month i.e. within the period of 1999 - 2003.
National coverage of evangelization had been achieved for the first time! The more
detailed information can be read in the following description below.
The second period was indicated by the so-called ‘massive crusades’ i.e. the
‘Kebaktian Kebangunan Rohani (KKR) massal’, that was crusade in one place (town)
with big-scale mobilisation of Christian people from a lot of local churches of many
denominations which were performed through special arrangements in public spaces
such as at convention halls, public meeting buildings and, quite often, on city squares,
soccer fields, school yards etc. Thousands of people attended each crusade, in
numbers approximately between 1500 to 10.000 people. Beside the mobilized
attendants, some people from neighbouring houses and passers-by also joined the
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