MEMPHIS, Tenn. — “An organization does not have momentum, a movement does, and Moderator Bill Dudley is leading our denomination in a movement of God,” was both the introduction of the speaker and the theme of the event as mission-minded Presbyterians gathered at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s World Outreach Encounter in Memphis, Tenn.
Dudley had the great challenge of following Aileen Coleman who shared stories and perspectives from her more than 40 years on the mission field in Jordan. It is Coleman who is credited by Franklin Graham for his personal turnaround many years ago and of that Bill Dudley reflected, “It was Franklin Graham who called to tell me about Aileen who was at Lookout Mountain. She left us speechless when she preached at Signal Mountain. I value this woman’s faithful, faithful witness to Jesus Christ.”
Turning then to prayer and to the subject matter at hand, the EPC moderator and pastor of Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga shared from his experience over the past five years.
“The first EPC General Assembly that I attended was in 2007 in Colorado. As the missionary names were called and they began to move to the front of the sanctuary I was moved by the Holy Spirit — I had never seen such dramatic commitments — I literally could not control those emotions,” Dudley shared.
Considering his prior decades of service in the Presbyterian Church (USA) he said, “I had been caught up in the aura of the defense of the Gospel, arguing, debating, orchestrating and administrating that I had lost my passion for sharing the faith with the lost. I had lost that sense of zeal that wanted the world to know this person who had come into my life named Jesus Christ. I had somewhere misplaced it, and I wanted God to replace it in my life. So, I began a pilgrimage to renew that experience in my life.”

PHOTO BY THE LAYMAN
Bill Dudley, moderator of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), speaks during the World Outreach Encounter in Memphis, Tenn.
Prayer and questions
That season of replacement and renewal led Dudley more deeply into prayer and then to ask probing questions of himself.
Saying that the Lord led him into an intense season of examining the four gospels, Dudley kept a journal focusing on a different question each time he worked his way through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. During this time, Dudley says he read “no newspapers, no magazines, only the gospels.”
In answer to the question, “What do you want me to do?,” Dudley said that he was “confronted early in Matthew with an answer. In Jesus’ invitation to a man named Matthew.”
Reflecting on Matthew 9:9 and the following text, Dudley said, “Matthew was a tax collector — considered to be a cheat. Here was a guy who had betrayed his family and community but also one who could still cheat them. Among the Jews, no one was to engage him.”
Continuing, he said, “Jesus is coming by and He sees this man — He sees Matthew sitting at the very table where he has disgraced his own people. Jesus simply says to him, ‘Follow me Matthew’ and immediately Matthew rose and followed. He let Jesus lead him.”
Punctuating the improbable nature of this encounter, Dudley emphasized that “for Jesus to have invited this man to become one of His own was to take a huge risk for the new Kingdom. He not only walks with him, Jesus goes to Matthew’s house. Matthew had not been trained, he had not been equipped, he had not been told anything and yet he had a dinner party. The only people he knew to invite were other tax collectors and sinners because everyone else has cast him out.”
Do you know six non-believers?
Dudley said, “It is staggering to me. Matthew goes and has an evangelical supper and invites Jesus to share with them. Most of us today rarely use dining room tables. We generally go out and meet people in other places. So, I wondered, how many people do you think were at that dinner party? Our table will seat 8-10. I subtracted Matthew and Jesus and I was left with six. Do you know six non-believers?”
That, Dudley said, was the question God put before Him: “I want to know how many people you know from your everyday life that are unbelievers.”
That’s when, Dudley said, “Jesus said to me, ‘I want to remodel your life.'” So, he prayed, “God would you give me six nonbelievers?” Then he opened his eyes with expectation, and he opened his life to the possibility of divine appointments that God would set.
“Walking back to my car one day I had a friend who needed a ride to the tailor shop. That tailor’s name is Kamil. Kamil is a wonderful tailor. Kamil is also Muslim. And,” Dudley brightened, “I asked, ‘God, is this the one for me?'”
He then spoke at length about how he took garments to Kamil, one at a time, and how he began to trade with him. Then, Dudley recalled, “Last summer I did some damage to my pulpit robe and I wanted to take it to Kamil. I asked if it would offend him, and he assured me that it did not.” So Dudley left the robe with him.
The Moderator’s Cross
But the EPC moderator had forgotten that in the robe’s pocket there was a cross, and not just any cross — the Moderator’s Cross from the General Assembly.
Kamil’s daughter called Dudley to tell him that a piece of gold jewelry had been found in the pocket of the robe. And then with tears welling into his eyes, Dudley held the cross lovingly in his hands and said, “I had opportunity to use this cross to give witness to Kamil” by using all the symbols and words engraved therein.
Dudley said, “I told him that I believe in a man named Jesus and that’s who I am.”
He then added, “I take one thing at a time to Kamil in an effort to build a relationship. He knows the name of Jesus, but he doesn’t yet know all that means.”
Kamil also now knows Bill Dudley for whom Jesus means everything.
That highly relational, long-term, conversational approach to evangelism is what Dudley commended to others as they consider their calling to missional faithfulness in the world today.
Dudley went on to share about others the Lord has given him — a man in prison and one whose labor is to serve the folks with whom Dudley ordinarily does ministry at Signal Mountain.
He then returned to punctuate the point of his message, “God purposes our lives to be bearers of the Gospel. I’d lost the freshness of sharing that joy.”
Matthew meals
He then lamented that in the EPC, “We don’t have a simple means today to equip our people to put the Gospel before their neighbors.”
Adding that “most of us are in congregations with a staleness for sharing the Gospel.”
Looking at the statistics he lamented that “65 percent of all evangelical churches have plateaued or are decreasing in membership. One-third are showing nominal growth — but even some of that is just people coming from other churches.”
He laid forth the challenge that some have called Matthew meals: “Let’s suppose you come out of a congregation of 600; assume that half will participate in something you ask them to do. If those 300 invited six persons to their dinner table to meet Jesus that would be 1,800 contacts. Let’s suppose that church would have 1,800 contacts for Jesus in a year — and maybe a third would receive Him. That would mean that a congregation of 600 would double in one year if our congregations knew how to share with Kamil and Joe and Richard.”
He concluded excitedly and expectantly, “They are on our doorsteps. We must pray that the Church of Jesus Christ will become vitally alive for sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. We must befriend them, build community in slow ways and give them opportunities to see Christ Jesus in us.”