Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

In the 60's at my parents CoC there was an "evangelist". who came to speak there named Mid McKnight. It was their annual "meeting" week at the church. He was known for bringing large numbers of people forward at the invitation like Jimmy Allen or Billy Graham. He gave his normal polished performance but no one came forward after about 3 nights and he complained about the audience actually during his sermon, saying it doesn't seem the people here are interested. My father took him out to eat to a cafeteria because they didn't have much time and he complained about not being taken to a full service restaurant. My father also took him and showed the foster homes the congregation supported and he asked why they were wasting his time with that. I wonder what the psychology is of this kind of thing and if people have experienced similar things.

Interesting. I don't remember hearing of this guy.

Just curious...What type of cofc did you attend?

I attended a mainstream church, no instrumental music but supported missionaries, orphanages, and the CoC colleges like Freed Hardeman.

longdistancerunner wrote: ↑Mon Jan 17, 2022 2:18 pm I attended a mainstream church, no instrumental music but supported missionaries, orphanages, and the CoC colleges like Freed Hardeman.

Got it. No, we usually did not have preachers visit who were aligned with the mainstream churches. They had to agree with the NICOC / "anti" view if they were to be invited to speak.

Mainstreamer here -
Not him, but men sort of LIKE him - I never understood (even at 8 or 10) why anybody even EXPECTED folks to 'go forward', since absolutely everybody who actually voluntarily CAME to that sort of thing were ALREADY church members in good standing, who certainly CERTAINLY did not remotely think that THEY were in any need to being 'saved'. They already WERE, after all.

I think the whole 'revival' thing mostly died out after radio and TV arrived, because up until then, a revival meeting was ENTERTAINMENT and everybody DID come to Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show (love that song) because they didn't have anything ELSE going on.

The last proper 'revival I remember - the whole tents, with sawdust on the ground and folding chairs) was probably before 1960.

The 'meetings' with the 'speaker' in the church auditorium were a lot less exciting and garnered a smaller audience of the ALREADY 'saved'.

Yes I remember Mid McKnight when I was a kid and he might have even preached at our church. I remember he was venerated by everyone.

At our church, like Agricola said, everyone was already baptized except kids, so the only ones really needing to "come forward" were kids who had been talked to, perhaps many times, by the minister that they needed to be baptized (you know, using the fear approach) OR those who needed to "confess" and "return" to the Lord".