The team from Lake Region and Indiana conferences, along with the North American Division Evangelism Institute and Lake Union worked together to proclaim the gospel in 13 churches for two weeks.
Debbie Michel
October 23, 2025Seven minutes from the Emmanuel Seventh-day Adventist Church, in a blighted neighborhood southeast of Indianapolis, the sound of children’s laughter drifted across an apartment courtyard. Seminarian Martin Forbes Wilson and Bible worker Cynthia Duggins stood outside the trash-strewn building where they had spent days listening to residents’ stories and offering quiet prayers, slowly earning the trust of parents desperate for hope in a violence-prone community.
This afternoon, they had come with a surprise. They gathered the children, then rounded up a mother who had previously mentioned her youngest daughter’s birthday but said she couldn’t afford a cake. The woman was overjoyed when she saw the chocolate icing cake with shiny gold “Happy Birthday” lettering.
“That moment broke down every barrier,” he said. “It showed the church really cared.”
Wilson, a seminary student at Andrews University, was one of 10 students in the North American Division Evangelism Institute (NADEI) field school who joined pastors and Bible workers for Forecasting Hope, an evangelism campaign that blanketed Indianapolis from Sept. 13-27. The audacious collaboration between the Indiana and Lake Region conferences, as well as the North American Division and Lake Union, brought together 13 churches and multiple language groups under one mission. Over two weeks, hundreds attended nightly, and more than 190 people were baptized, illustrating what can happen when two conferences unite to share the hope of Jesus in the heart of the city.
The churches participating from Indiana Conference were: Cicero (Indiana Academy), Indianapolis Second Spanish, Lawrence Spanish, Indianapolis Mizo, Chapel West, Glendale, Maranatha Haitian, Indianapolis Central Spanish. Lake Region churches included Emmanuel, Capitol City, Haughville, Marian Ephesus and Tabernacle of Hope.
For Tim Madding, director of NADEI, the impact of the campaign was exactly what the field school was meant to achieve. “We believe evangelism is best learned by doing,” he said. Every seminary student is required to take field evangelism, but this year, he said, “we wanted to do something bigger, something that would reflect the spirit of Pentecost 2025.”
That vision took shape nearly a year in advance as NADEI faculty met with union and conference leaders to choose the right location. “With the Division’s goal to see thousands of reaping events across North America, we thought, why not make Indianapolis a citywide project?” Madding said. “We wanted our students to experience what it means when churches, conferences and cultures come together for mission.”
From the beginning, pastors from both the Indiana and Lake Region conferences met regularly with NADEI faculty and Bible workers to pray and prepare. In the months leading up to the meetings, training sessions were held at the Glendale Church where members learned how to visit homes, start small groups, and build relationships long before the first sermon was preached.
When Robb Long, ministerial director for the Indiana Conference, was approached about partnering on the project, he didn’t hesitate. “We were thrilled to do it,” he said. “We’ve always wanted to see a coordinated citywide evangelistic effort, and this was the perfect opportunity.”
Long said the initiative embodied what Ellen White envisioned when she urged the church to unite its efforts in major cities. “She talked about doctors, teachers, colporteurs, Bible workers, evangelists, all combining their gifts to reach the cities,” he said, referencing White’s writings in “Acts of the Apostles.” “That’s exactly what this was; seminary professors, students, and local members working side by side in one of the largest urban areas in our territory.”
On those same streets, Wilson was one of many putting that vision into practice. A seminary student with decades of experience as a pastor in his native Venezuela, as well as in the Caribbean and New Jersey, he was assigned to Emmanuel Church, where he and Duggins began visiting a nearby apartment complex with most residents living below the poverty line. They soon became familiar faces. “At first people were cautious,” Wilson said. “They’d peek through the door or just nod from a distance. But after a few days, they started inviting me in. We’d talk about their kids, their jobs, sometimes about faith.”
One family who had kept their distance began attending nightly meetings after Wilson and Duggins helped celebrate their daughter’s birthday. “They told me later they came because they felt seen,” he said. “They said, ‘You cared when no one else did.’”
While the goal of bringing hope to the hurting was the same, the strategies that churches employed varied widely. Michael Lewis, NADEI associate director, said one of the highlights for him was seeing how different conferences adapted outreach to their context.
He pointed to the Spanish-speaking congregations, which relied heavily on small groups. “The Spanish churches are just dynamically able to use small group ministry to reach out to their family, friends, coworkers and neighbors in a way that is just so biblical,” Lewis said. “Family bringing family and friends bringing friends—that was so dynamic.”
Meanwhile, Lake Region’s English-speaking churches used community giveaways to meet practical needs. In the African American community, he said one of the ways to bring people out is to do a giveaway based upon actual needs. People need items such as diapers, food, shoes, book bags, and school uniforms. “These giveaways cause people to come to the church because they actually need these things,” he said. “But when they get there, they hear the gospel.”
What impressed him most was that even though the giveaways happened the first week and there were none the second week, the crowds stayed the same. “People had heard something the first week that became more important to them than the giveaways,” said Lewis.
If there was one theme shared by everyone involved, it was the power of partnership. You had two different conferences and different language churches that do not normally collaborate, all working together to reach Indianapolis. Madding said, “It’s my hope that they will continue to do that.”
Rojas called it one of the most harmonious efforts he had seen. “There was no competition, no animosity, no complaining of anything,” he said. “We worked in a beautiful way, both conferences, and I think the results show that there was a very positive spirit.”
Each morning, pastors, Bible workers, and students gathered to share testimonies and pray together. Lewis described those sessions as “beautiful moments of learning and seeing God move through the collaboration.”
For Rojas, the real success of Forecasting Hope is not in the baptismal numbers but in the process. “When we talk about evangelism, many people think only about the reaping,” he said. He noted that baptisms are an important part, but there is much more.
He explained that evangelism is a continual cycle: preparing, planting, cultivating, reaping and preserving. After the reaping comes the preserving. “Evangelism is not done when the series is done,” he said. “The evangelism cycle continues. We continue to visit. We continue to do small groups. We continue to teach. And that’s what’s happening right now. Even though the meetings are over, the work continues. People are still being reached.”
As the final baptisms were celebrated in October and the last workers’ meeting adjourned, the NADEI team is also turning their attention to what they could learn from the experience. Part of what NADEI does is research. They look at the methods that were used and analyze them so they can teach students and pastors how to do evangelism more effectively.
Data from Indianapolis—attendance, Bible study interests, retention—will be studied in future classes. As students graduate and take up positions in districts across North America, Lewis said they’re going to take these experiences and apply them wherever they go. “So, we’re not just impacting Indianapolis. We’re shaping the next generation of pastors and evangelists.”
For Wilson, the campaign became more than a class project. Fourteen of the 23 people baptized through his meetings came from the same apartment complex where he and Bible worker Duggins had first played basketball with children and prayed with parents. One of those baptized was the mother of the child receiving the surprise birthday cake.
He admitted that saying goodbye to the people he met in the community has been difficult. “It’s so painful just to separate from them because the love and the gratitude that they have toward us has been unique in my life,” Wilson said. “They have become like family.”
Even as he returns to seminary classes, Wilson plans to stay connected. “I love these people, so I can’t just abandon them,” he said. He’s working with Emmanuel Church Pastor Tunde Ojewole to see how he can still be around on weekends to continue “until they’re solidified, they’re trained, and the church is more involved with them, as well.”
For Wilson, and other leaders who served across Indianapolis, the campaign may have ended, but the cycle of evangelism continues.
Debbie Michel is editor of the Lake Union Herald.
