Page 11 - Introduction to New Jerusalem Evangelism

meeting by their own will. Mobilizations were done from surrounding churches i.e.
near-by the crusade location until the radii of 1-2 hours journey by buses/trucks/cars.
In this period, by surprise, miracles did happen as written in the Bible in many
crusades in many towns and cities. God visited and gently touched His people through
many healings and some wonders. Some of the healings: blind people could see, mute-
and-deaf people became capable of hearing and talking, limb hand and lame people
got healed and walked (and raised the hand) etc. Some people gave testimonies that
they had been healed from some internal diseases. Unfortunately, not like the blind,
mute-deaf and lame people, these testimonies of getting healed from internal diseases
were lacked of evidence i.e. medical check and verification. The testimonies were
usually given directly on the stage at the end of the crusade. Some were given several
days (weeks) after the crusades through telephones and postal mails. Two provinces
with a lot of NJE’s crusades were Sumatra Utara (North Sumatra) and Sulawesi Utara
(North Sulawesi). The more detailed explaination can be seen below.
The third period took place with a fundamental change in the characteristics of
evangelization. That was the serial implementation of crusades in some towns (cities)
and each crusade only involved some local churches (of the same or different
denomination - cluster churches). This pattern was completely opposite to the second
pattern with large mobilization of people from many churches of different
denominations and crusade locations in public spaces. On the contrary the third
pattern looked similar to the first one with crusade implementation in the local
churches. The only difference lied on the facts that in the first pattern, in most of the
crusades, it was not a serial crusades and not cluster churches as well but a single,
solitary church at each time. The third pattern also involved churches of middle to
small sizes in terms of the number of church attendants and building sizes compared
to the small ones in the first period.
The fundamental change had also taken place in the evangelization paradigm.
The first and the second showed the strong message on repentance and living close to
God. The latest one stressed more on the ‘purification-sanctification’ and ‘faith
strenghthening’. This paradigm change had been supported by the facts such as many
happenings of Holy Spirit annointings after being prayed, renewal of faith and
commitment to Lord Jesus and increasing contributions of church members and
activists in serving God. Further information can be obtained from below.
The existence of the three different patterns in three different evangelical
periods has been closely connected to the leading and interfering by God in what has
happened with NJE and the crusade environments including changes in political and
socio-economic conditions in general.
10