The Baptist World Alliance (BWA) Centenary Congress kicks off on Wednesday evening. On the eve of the Congress, Baptists from fifty different nations gathered on Tuesday 26th July at the inaugural Living Water Evangelism Conference entitled "Telling the Story" for the official launch of the BWA new evangelism strategy.

The vision of a US$1.2m global evangelism project has been unveiled by BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz, who initiated the scheme. Ten further "Living Water" conferences are planned to be held on different continents in a bid to roll out the vision worldwide.

Lotz delivered the keynote address. He urged church leaders to send their workers and members to the various conferences to help ensure the long-term success of the scheme. BWA demanded all of the 211 Baptist unions across the world to be involved in evangelism as well.

Money to fund the strategy was raised through donations from supporters of the BWA.

BWA President Dr Billy Kim urged churches to make the practise of prayer the underpinning factor behind the new evangelism strategy. He said prayer must be the focus for the policy to bear fruit by leading unbelievers to Christ.

Kim said, "All the money you have, all the organisations you have will mean nothing unless there is prayer. This committee will be like noisy cymbals and a lot of hot air."

"I believe the practise of prayer is so vital. We preach about prayer, we tell people about prayer, but there is a lack of prayer among Baptist leaders. It is easy to preach, but I have a hard time to pray for half-an-hour on my knees. For 'Christ the Living Water' to be successful there must be focus and practise of prayer."

He shared his pastoral experience as a minister of the 15,000-member Central Baptist Church in Suwon, Korea. He believed that active prayer life has been the strength to overcome the major problems in his church throughout its history.

Kim said his prayer for the UK was that the nation would catch the fire of evangelism and take the message to every community.

As the first step of the new evangelism strategy, an international conference is due to be held in St Petersburg, Russia, in October this year with guest speakers Anne Graham-Lotz and BWA youth president Ron Bobo. In April 2006, conference will be held in Curitiba, Brazil; then followed by Mexico City, Mexico in July as well as Nairobi, Kenya in October.

In 2007 other events will be hosted in Thailand, Ghana, USA, and two have been scheduled for India in 2008, the Middle East and Europe. While the Caribbean and Holland will host regional conferences in 2009 followed by the next World Congress due to be held in Hawaii in 2010.

Alongside the launch of the new evangelism scheme yesterday, delegates also attended "Telling the Story" workshops which covered areas as diverse as "telling the story in a hostile environment" and "telling the story to an HIV/AIDS victim". Each workshop was addressed by expert practitioners in the various fields, people who spoke from their experience, not just from a theoretical knowledge.