October 1, 2026
CARROLLTON, Ga. — Churches can draw a crowd with a meal, a sports event, a fall festival, or a special guest. Kevin Williams said the question is whether they are prepared to use those moments to share the gospel.
Williams, senior pastor of First Baptist Church Villa Rica, led the Engage 6 session at Tabernacle Baptist Church on Monday, Aug. 10, in Carrollton, focusing on event evangelism as part of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s statewide effort to help churches strengthen evangelism.
His main challenge was direct: Events do not become evangelistic simply because a church puts them on. “You must be intentional,” Williams said. “You must have an idea of what you want to do and how you want to do it.”
Williams said pastors bear the responsibility of leading their churches toward evangelism by their actions, not merely their words. Evangelistic leadership, he explained, begins with a biblical conviction that Jesus has commanded His followers to make disciples.
“Don’t just talk about evangelism, pastor. Live it,” Williams said. “You can’t get up there and say, ‘Y’all are going to lead them to Jesus now,’ and you never do it. You lead by example.”
Williams told pastors and church leaders that every event should be planned with the gospel in mind, whether large community gatherings, men’s events, fall festivals, school outreach events, food ministries, or mission efforts.
“Everything you do at the church is an opportunity to evangelize. Everything,” he said.
He gave churches a simple framework for approaching events: plan, prepare, play, and repeat. Churches must plan the event, prepare for what they hope God will do, carry out the plan, and then do it again.
Planning includes far more than practical considerations such as selecting a date and arranging food, he said. Churches must think through the gospel presentation, how people will respond, who will counsel them, how information will be gathered, and how follow-up will happen.
Finally, Williams said, it’s time to put the plan into action. “Let's don't talk about it. Let's do it. Let’s play the game. We get on the field and we play, and our field is the mission field.”
Williams also shared what he called the “Pack It Out Theory,” which he learned from Dr. Jerry Falwell at Liberty University. That approach changed the way he thought about event evangelism. The idea, he said, is to create opportunities that draw people to the church, clearly present the gospel, and then continue building on the momentum.
“Pack it out, share the gospel,” Williams said. “Keep doing things that will bring people to your church.”
He described the pattern as an accordion. A major event may expand attendance for a day, then attendance may contract afterward, but it often does not contract all the way back to where it was before.
Pastor Jermaine Oates, assistant pastor at Community Fellowship Baptist Church in Covington, said the session fit his church’s current focus. Community Fellowship’s theme for the year is “Sow, Grow and Go,” and the church is now in what Oates called its “going phase.”
“Our initiative, our push is to get more involved in our community,” Oates said. “So that’s part of the reason I’m here. To learn something new, to be excited about what God is doing, not just in my life but in the lives of His people in general, and sharing that gospel about how great He really is.”
Oates said one statistic Williams shared about the number of people dying each day without Christ made a strong impression on him.
“We talk sports all the time. We talk politics all the time,” Oates said. “Sometimes we’re hesitant about bringing up Jesus. He should be the first one to talk about and not the last.”
Scott Estes, pastor of Mountain View Baptist Church in Bowdon, said he came to the training to be encouraged and to learn from others.
“You hear great ideas, and you know it always has to be modified to your area, the size of your church, and those things,” he said, “but to glean from one another like that is just a great thing.”
Estes said Williams’ accordion analogy helped him think about how churches can use larger events to reach people and then follow up with those who come.
“I always feel follow-up is one of my weaknesses, and I want to hear how that really works,” Estes said. “Listening today, as people were sharing at the end during the Q&A, was very beneficial for me.”
Sam Braswell, pastor of Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church in Carrollton, said he came to gain a fresh perspective on how to do event evangelism more effectively. The session, he said, especially helped him think about how smaller churches can approach outreach.
“Even though we are a small church of about 100, we can plan an event, and reaching a few is better than reaching zero,” Braswell said.
Braswell said churches must be intentional, rather than simply hosting events because they have always hosted them.
“We have to do a better job of making events intentionally evangelistic, and think outside the box to help us use the talents and personalities in our church to strategically reach people,” he said.
Steve Foster, the GBMB evangelism catalyst, described the Engage 6 sessions as designed to help churches reach their local mission fields. “The response has been encouraging,” he said. “Pastors are engaged, asking great questions, and looking for practical ways to strengthen evangelism in their churches.”
The August meetings drew 202 participants across six locations, bringing total 2026 Engage 6 attendance to 1,474, according to GBMB figures. The latest round included sessions in Blairsville, Barnesville, Carrollton, Tifton, Rome, and Savannah.
“We are grateful for every church, pastor, association, and participant investing in gospel conversations and evangelism training,” Foster said. “Please continue praying that these sessions will equip believers to faithfully share the gospel of Jesus in our mission field.”
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