Lessons learned—Keys to remember when booking an evangelist

Once upon a time, I made a mistake with an evangelist even though I had good intentions. God taught me a wonderful lesson that I must share. We often learn more from our mistakes than our meager success.

Here are some key thoughts to consider:

• Book an evangelist for your church at least once a year because our churches need evangelists and they depend on us.

• An evangelist is a gift from God to the church.

• Not all working evangelists have the gift.

• Check out the evangelist with more than one pastor.

• Ask questions of the evangelist that might reveal character and motivational drive.

• Ask about all costs to the church—transportation costs, booking fee, deposit, love offering minimum, equipment setup, hotel or home accommodations, CDs, food allergies or special needs.

• Ask if the evangelist pays income tax and is current with the IRS.

• Get a 1099 for offerings of $600 or more and the evangelist’s Social Security number.

• Ask the evangelist where his church membership presently resides.

• Ask the evangelist if he went to a seminary.

• Don’t book an evangelist and cancel the week before. Be sure to give a month’s notice or follow through with your commitment to the evangelist. Evangelists need time to fill open dates.

• Try to designate in your church budget money for evangelists—no matter the amount—even though you will receive a freewill offering. For example, mail $100 from budget for travel expenses and then allow for a love offering.

• Ask if the evangelist’s spouse and children will be coming, and give directions as well as your church telephone number and cell number to the evangelist. And don’t forget to feed them after the event.

• If evangelist does not have commitment prior to or after the event, ask if you could ask a fellow pastor if he would like to invite the evangelist for an engagement—on Sunday night, for example.

• Send a confirmation letter to the evangelist one month before event confirming all information the two of you talked about.

• Ask the evangelist for prayer requests.

• Always send the evangelist a thank you letter after he leaves your church.

• Recommend the evangelist if you feel he is called of God and did a good job at your church.

• Put some gas in his car and pray with evangelist upon departure from your city.

• Get involved in multi-faceted evangelism and place an evangelist in your church’s undesignated budget as well as church prayer ministry and continue to be blessed by doing kingdom work.

• Always go over the times of service several times, along with any special instructions.

–Mike Barrera is pastor of United Baptist Church in Laredo.