By Tracey Bridcutt, South Pacific Adventist Record
Who says that the birth of Jesus can only be celebrated in December?
The Seventh-day Adventist Church organized a version of the popular “Road to Bethlehem” Christmas program in Melbourne, Australia, in July, allowing 2,250 people to discover the Bible prophecies about Jesus through a first-of-its-kind evangelism program.
Kerina-Lee Joy, Global Mission pioneer and evangelism facilitator for the Victorian Conference, said she decided to try a new approach to traditional evangelistic campaigns after seeing that a “Road to Bethlehem” program organized by the Nunawading Seventh-day Adventist Church in Victoria for the past two decades had attracted more than 16,000 people annually but was not leading to church growth.
“As a result, I felt extremely saddened and also challenged by this situation,” Joy said. “I spent several weeks agonizing in prayer, wrestling with what we could do as a church to follow-up the thousands of community contacts. Then very early one morning the Lord gave me the idea of running a Christmas in July program based on the Messianic prophecies from Scripture.”
Her vision caught the imagination of Australian evangelist Geoff Youlden, who wrote the script for the program and played a key role in bringing the program together.
