Geoff Folland
In the first article, I argued that Australia’s most effective outreach was never really about the stadium. The stadium functioned as a signal. The real work happened locally. That raises a reasonable leadership question: If evangelism is fundamentally relational — built on trust, friendship, and credibility – what role do campaigns actually play? If relationships matter most, why bother with time-bound initiatives at all?
History – and experience – point to a clear answer: Campaigns don’t replace relational evangelism; they activate it.
The problem campaigns solve
Most leaders don’t doubt the importance of evangelism. What they struggle with is momentum. Most Christians:
● care deeply about the people around them
● intend to have meaningful conversations
● affirm evangelism as a value
And yet, action often stalls – not because of opposition, but because of inertia. Across Australia’s outreach history, campaigns have consistently solved this problem by converting a permanent value into a temporary priority. They create a moment that says, “this matters now.”
Organisationally, a campaign functions like a sprint within a long-distance strategy. It concentrates attention and decision-making in a way that “always-on” expectations rarely achieve.
Campaigns raise the temperature
When evangelism becomes time-bound, it becomes actionable. This was true as early as the R. A. Torrey–Alexander Mission, where simultaneous meetings, prayer mobilisation, and systematic visitation created urgency across cities and congregations.
It was true again in Billy Graham’s 1959 crusade, where a national moment galvanised local churches to identify, train, and invite people they already knew. And it remained true in later decades through regional crusades led by figures like Greg Laurie, and through media-based initiatives such as the JESUS film. The form changes. The effect does not. Campaigns raise the temperature so that ordinary believers actually move.
Public identification unlocks private conversation
One of the most overlooked mechanisms in effective campaigns is what psychologists would call third-party validation. When people visibly identify with a shared moment – whether it’s a public meeting, a film screening, or a nationally recognised initiative – the relational cost of conversation drops.
● Curiosity replaces awkwardness.
● Permission replaces pressure.
The campaign doesn’t do the conversation. It makes the conversation possible. This is why the JESUS film proved so effective across multiple eras in Australia. Whether through early projector tours or the later Gift to the Nation VHS campaign, the power of the film was not simply its content, but the way it gave ordinary Christians a natural, credible reason to invite someone else into a shared experience. Again: signal, not substitution.
Why training belongs before the moment, not after
Another consistent feature of effective campaigns is what they enable before anything public happens. Campaigns legitimise preparation. In both the Torrey mission and the Graham crusade, extensive training preceded the public meetings — for counsellors, local leaders, and volunteers. The same was true for the JESUS film distribution in the 1980’s and 1990’s, which required hosts to be equipped to invite well and follow up relationally.
When there is:
● a clear focus
● a defined time-frame
● a shared moment leaders gain permission to say, for the next few weeks, this is what we are preparing for.
Without that window, training drifts. With it, formation accelerates.
External voices build confidence – not dependency
Across all these examples, one pattern remains strikingly consistent. Whether the voice was Torrey, Graham, Laurie, or a film project rather than a person, the role of the national platform was never to replace local evangelism — but to embolden it. A credible external voice signals seriousness. It reassures believers that inviting friends is reasonable, thoughtful, and culturally intelligible. But the actual work of evangelism still happens person-to-person, within existing relationships. Once again: Campaigns supply confidence; communities supply connection.
A quiet reframe for leaders
Stripped of nostalgia, the leadership principles are straightforward:
● Campaigns are mobilisation tools, not conversion factories
● Their primary audience is Christians, not sceptics
● Their core outcome is activation, not attendance
The future of outreach in Australia will not be driven by constant spectacle. But neither will it be sustained by vague aspiration alone. It will require moments that focus attention, raise temperature, and give ordinary Christians permission to act.
A question worth holding
Perhaps the most helpful question for leaders is not, “Do campaigns still work?” A better question is: “Are we using campaigns to do what they are actually good at?” In the final article of this series, I’ll explore what this means in a deeply multicultural Australia – and why the future of national outreach will need to be decentralised if it’s going to land at all.
Geoff Folland is the National Director of Power to Change Australia
Image: Cross equals love, Hillsong’s campaign that went viral. Image credit: Hillsong Instagram