A New
Vision
Write the vision and make it plain on
tablets,
that he may run who reads it.
Habakkuk 2:2
The San Diego School of Evangelism opened its doors in the fall of 1976 and was an immediate success. Classes were taught on the top floor of the offices once used by the North Park theater management. Neal Pirolo, a former missionary to Brazil who had been a school principal under Chuck Smith at Costa Mesa, became the director. Pirolo's educational background and bent for cross-cultural evangelism yielded dramatic results. After his students were trained he wasted no time in sending them to the far corners of the world, where they learned (often the hard way) what it is like to communicate the gospel in an indifferent environment. Pirolo built his curriculum upon intensive Bible teaching, church history, history of missions, language study, comparative religions, apologetics, evangelistic methods, media training, and — always — practical experience. Pirolo himself traveled extensively throughout the world, searching out locations where his students could effectively serve the Lord with at least some community support.
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The "practicums," or periods of service, varied according to the local need. Thus in Israel some students worked in a kibbutz on the Golan Heights; in Australia they taught Scripture in local schools of New South Wales, engaged in youth work at Koala Park, and passed out tracts in Sydney's Kings Cross district. In Holland they mixed with "internationals" in youth shelters. In Hooper Bay, Alaska, they lived and worked among the Eskimos. In Hailsham, England, they formed a church and visited prisons and schools. Other areas to which their practicums have taken them have included Hong Kong, Macao, Korea, Jordan, the Philippines, Hawaii, and Canada. When Billy Graham conducted evangelistic crusades in the western states and western Canada, scores of students from the School of Evangelism traveled to serve as volunteers at the events. Sacramento, Tacoma, Spokane, Las Vegas, and Edmonton were visited.
In 1982 the school acquired a new director, Dennis Magnuson, and under his leadership some remarkable new chapters are being written in the history of missions. Magnuson has designed the practicums as a sifting process whereby the church can discern which of its members are called by God to vocational evangelistic service. The students continue to help out at evangelistic crusades in many capacities and to go abroad to cross-cultural spheres of action, but Magnuson has also introduced them to the wilderness. In some of the loneliest spots of the west — the Sierra Nevada mountains, the hills of Santa Catalina Island, Death Valley — the students are tested in a natural environment. They learn to live with God and each other; and while the scenery is magnificent, the training is often rugged.
One element that has characterized the School of Evangelism from the beginning has been its insistence on instruction in sound biblical doctrine. Both day and evening
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classes are immersed in the Word of God. A qualified faculty has provided teaching that (according to the testimony of some students) compares favorably with the instructional level of America's most reputable universities. Among other subjects, the students are exposed to New Testament Greek as well as to modern languages.
When Michael MacIntosh was invited to Mexico City to conduct a series of evangelistic meetings, Magnuson arranged for the series to be included in one of his School of Evangelism's field trips. Thirty-five students arrived in the Mexican capital from Tehuacan, where they had been working with churches and youth groups and conducting meetings. They made their headquarters a warehouse that had been purchased by a former School of Evangelism student. This man, John Lilley, came to Christ under Michael's ministry while he was obtaining his master's degree in business administration at San Diego State University. He then moved to Mexico, applied for Mexican citizenship, and changed his name to Juan Domingo.
The warehouse became the site of Horizon's crusade in the spring of 1984. It served also as kitchen and sleeping quarters for the American visitors and as the locale of all-night prayer vigils. Meanwhile all kinds of interesting things were happening in the city. The evangelism students had not only learned to speak Spanish, they had written and rehearsed a street drama, which they presented several times during the week. The plot involved a confused young woman who was tempted by demons, and then encountered Jesus of Nazareth. The acting was lively, the drama was moving, and the response enthusiastic. One day the students presented their play on the plaza of the Basilica of Santa Maria de Guadalupe in the religious heart of the capital.
Another evangelistic tool that proved effective was a clown act. Five students put on full makeup and appeared
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in a city park as clowns, quickly gathering a crowd with their acrobatics, juggling acts, comical antics, and jokes. Children particularly were attracted, and it was not long before one of the clowns was telling the small ones about Jesus. While the parents looked on indulgently, he led some thirty youngsters in a simple prayer of commitment. And all the while, other students were handing out leaflets announcing the crusade services in the warehouse.
Michael's preaching, with Juan Domingo's interpreting, concentrated on Bible themes. It was well received by the Mexican people, and each night some fifty or more people came forward at the closing invitation to profess or renew faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Both before and after the message the musical team from San Diego played and sang, and seemed to offer exactly what the listeners wanted. It was Christian, contemporary, tuneful, happy, and loud.
By the end of the week of meetings the crowds had increased to three hundred, and people were asking why a church should not be formed. Several months later Juan Domingo was teaching a weekly Bible class attended by thirty-five persons and preaching on Friday evenings to a crowd of 150 Mexicans. Once there was an empty warehouse; now there was a church. "[You] once were not a people," Peter wrote to the twelve tribes scattered among the nations, "but are now the people of God" (1 Peter 2:10).
It wasn't always so smooth. When Michael first conceived of the School of Evangelism, he thought of it as an instrument to touch the world for Christ, not as an institution with deep roots in a particular place. As pastor of a church, he could see that the school, and in fact the whole pastoral ministry, involved duties and responsibilities that God required, but that he, Michael, did not feel called to discharge. Details of church and school organization,
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he felt, could be carried out by others more gifted and better suited to the tasks. In order to avoid getting his priorities out of order and neglecting his family, he put together a team and turned over some responsibilities to young men and women he trusted. The result was that he made some mistakes.
The first major mistake was to send a team of eleven people — seven women and four men — to Thailand for six months. Invited by an elderly Chinese couple whom Michael had met in 1976 and who wished to retire from a fruitful ministry, the team was expected to take over the operation of a Christian orphanage outside of Bangkok and eventually a Bible school as well. But the team deviated from Michael's original plan and confusion and embarrassment resulted. Feelings were hurt. Established missionaries in Thailand misinterpreted Michael's motives and became upset. Michael assessed it as "one of the most excruciatingly painful episodes of my life." He was forced to make an air journey across the Pacific and apologize to people all the way from Singapore to Bangkok to Hong Kong, and subsequently faced a rift in his own congregation.
As is usually the case in such situations, the problem boiled down to a very few people who were disaffected and unhappy with the pastor's direction. It took months to work out, but eventually the unhappy ones left and healing took place. But Michael learned a painful lesson: never again would he send a team so large to any one place for so long a time without mature and dedicated leadership.
In November 1981, Michael and sixteen of his church leaders spent four days and nights in the Anza-Borrego desert, waiting on the Lord for the direction of their ministry. One midnight as they were praying, God seemed to impart to them a fresh inspiration. It was time for them to
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take a fresh step, to move into new paths. The procedure became clear: they were to win, disciple, and send, and their evangelism would involve all three elements. The name "Calvary Chapel" would be changed to "Horizon Christian Fellowship," which would in turn become part of Horizon International Ministries, a worldwide evangelistic enterprise.
The design for this whole ministry Michael found clearly laid out in the first chapter of the Book of Acts: "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end to the earth" (v. 8).
Horizon Christian Fellowship, the church in which Michael was ministering, was to be Jerusalem. He was to labor in the Spirit to make the people who came to North Park theater into strong Christians who would walk in the Lord, would know His Word, and would bring in others to help who had gifts of ministry.
Judea would be San Diego County. He was to work together with other Christians and local churches in the Body of Christ to present the whole county with the gospel through evangelism and teaching. He was to see that churches were planted where they were needed and then train people to lead them, without taking anything for granted.
Samaria would be the United States of America, its territories and possessions. Michael had always loved his country, which he now recognized as a gift of God. Now he added a desire to reach his country for Christ through the medium of mass communication. As doors opened, he was to use literature, radio, television, and evangelistic crusades.
The "end of the earth" meant for him the world, the
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habitable portion of the planet, which from now on would be laid on his heart as a field to be reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Once the vision became clear, new churches were soon gathered and are now flourishing under local leadership not only in San Diego County, but in Hawaii, Mexico, England, and other places as a result of the groundwork laid by Horizon people. And yet there seems to be no parochial spirit in this enterprise, no allegiance to a doctrine narrower than the whole New Testament. Like the early followers of the "poor man of Assisi," these new-style missionaries are going about their religiously fragmented planet making friends and talking about Jesus, who was a friend of people. They aim to compete with no one and to love everybody. They create no denominational enclaves and keep no conversion graphs. In many cases they are not "sent" at all; they simply go. Home ties to Horizon Fellowship are extremely loose. They go as members of the Body of Christ, as people who love Jesus and desire to share that love, with a motivation much like that of similar movements in the past — the Brethren of the Common Life, the Quakers, and most notably the young Galilean disciples of Jesus. Most refreshing of all is the fact that they are not taking bureaucratic administrative positions, typing up reports in a mission compound or teaching English in a girls' school. Not that such works are not worthy and holy in God's sight; but these people prefer to be out on the street, like Paul and Barnabas in Lystra and like Adoniram Judson in Rangoon, making contact with the public, handing out leaflets, and inviting one and all to a Bible meeting.
When they come home they may leave behind a church of Bible believers gathered from street and high-rise, or they may not; but they erect no compounds and put up no steeples. They are simply singing a new song.
