Interest in the end of the world is at record levels. Nearly 75 million copies of the Left Behind book series have been sold. Major news publications like TIME, Newsweek, and The Economist have recently had cover stories about the end of the world. NBC recently ran a mini-series about the end of the world, called Revelations. And since 9/11, the top two topics requested at Bibleinfo.com are the "Second Coming" and "Signs of the End." Yet at the same time, misunderstanding about the Second Coming is also very high. Left Behind talks about the rapture. The Last Disciple, a new book from Hank Hanegraaff of The Bible Answer Man radio program, offers the preterist perspective of prophecy. Millions of people, desperate to understand the subject of Bible prophecy, are turning to sources of information that do not reflect solid biblical truth.

The team at It Is Written wants to change that. The purpose of The Appearing is to help those in our communities who are interested in this topic discover one of our churches and the unique Seventh-day Adventist message about the Second Coming.

What is The Appearing? The Appearing is a five-night satellite experience about the Second Coming, and an intentional seed-sowing activity for a local church community. It is designed to bring It Is Written viewers and other members of the general public through the doors of a local church, teach the Bible truth about Jesus Christ’s Second Coming, and quickly transition participants into one or more specific follow-up activities—pastor's class, other Sabbath school classes, individual Bible study, local evangelistic campaign, or home Bible study group.

The Appearing has four teaching components:

Satellite experience—Each night for five nights, Shawn Boonstra will spend 30–40 minutes sharing some aspect of the Second Coming in a dynamic, media-rich presentation via satellite.

Local moderator—At the conclusion of each night’s presentation, Boonstra will turn the time over to a local moderator to lead the audience through a short follow-up Bible study. The study will both review the content they’ve just heard and add a few questions to deepen their understanding. This allows for more personal interaction and stronger relationship building, and helps to quickly establish the local leader as an authority on the subject.

Follow–up class—Each night, Boonstra will also promote a follow-up class that will meet weekly at each host site for six to ten weeks. Classes will begin the Sabbath following the conclusion of the five-night series. This might be a pastor’s class, another Sabbath school class, individual Bible studies, a local evangelistic campaign, or home Bible study group.

Book—Boonstra has also written a book about the Second Coming called The Appearing. This book gives much greater historical detail about competing viewpoints about prophecy, and fleshes out the Adventist perspective. This book is an excellent companion to the five-night event and local follow-up classes.

Partnering with local churches, It Is Written's objective for this project is to bring new interests through the doors of the local church and help integrate them into church life. From the pre-event promotion, to each night’s presentation, and the follow-up communication with registered attendees—the It Is Written team is actively working to transition each interest from It Is Written toward a strong relationship with local church members.

Each church registered as a host site will receive a free resource kit with specialized materials. This resource kit includes:

Promotional materials, to rally church members and to inform the community about the event.

Training materials, to equip church members to be effective ambassadors for the Gospel.

Presentation materials, to prepare the local moderator to lead in each evening’s closing discussion.

In addition, It Is Written will offer a variety of follow-up resources to help members nurture and grow the new interests who would like to integrate into the life of the church.

To register as a host church, go to www.theappearing.com/host.

It Is Written press release