An Introduction to Key 73: Getting It Together for Jesus

You can plant grass one seed at a time. Regardless of when you plant it, the seed may sprout if given proper moisture and temperature. By planting just a few seeds a day you can eventually get a lawn—if you live long enough. And the resulting growth is “grass” fully much as that which comes from the sowing by a spreader in late summer (which in most parts of North America is the best time to start improving a lawn). The difference is that there is a much greater return on time, effort, and money if planting is done as a concentrated effort under optimum conditions.

This is the very simple common-sense idea behind the venture known as Key 73. It is nothing more than an attempt to evangelize together to capitalize on the benefits of coordinated enterprise. Evangelistically minded churchmen are joining hands to say, as Jesus put it after John the Baptist’s imprisonment, “The right time has come and the Kingdom of God is near. Turn away from your sins and believe the Good News!”

People continually come to Christ in saving faith—here a few, there a few—even when evangelism is at a low ebb. Some grow into great saints of God. But the idea of Key 73 is that there would probably be a much bigger ingathering of souls, proportionately, if many, many Christians shared their faith at the same time, thereby reinforcing one another’s witness. We have the resources for tremendous evangelistic impact; what we need to do is to discipline ourselves under the Spirit’s guidance and set some deadlines for carrying out the task. And if evangelicals dovetail their efforts, the yield will be much higher.

Key 73 promises to surpass in scope any previous Christian enterprise on this continent. Most large denominations are participating officially. More than fifty have committed themselves at every level to Key 73, and these include virtually all the main Baptist, Methodist, and Lutheran groups. Roman Catholic bishops have given what is tantamount to approval. The only big holdouts are the United Presbyterians and Episcopalians, who so far have committed themselves only at regional and local levels. The denominations are joined by a number of well-known para-ecclesiastical organizations such as Campus Crusade, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the American Bible Society, the American Tract Society, and Youth for Christ.

Selection of 1973 is rather arbitrary. There is nothing about this next year to make it a particularly “sacred year” (though if Key 73 achieves a measure of success, historians may want to call it that). And there is no reason to stop with 1973. But we needn’t worry about stopping—the problem is to start! Some demur by saying that every year should be a year of evangelism. True enough, but what this invariably means is that every year is a year of little or no evangelism because the churches simply maintain business as usual, which includes far too little outreach.

Key 73 is actually more a spirit than a set of plans. There are some specific plans, to be sure, but these are transcended by the phenomenal new zeal shown by the rapidly growing number of Christians to carry out the Great Commission on an unprecedented scale throughout North America. Evidence that the right time has come is seen in the fact that many influential churchmen who previously sneered at evangelism are captivated by Key 73. “Until recently,” said one Key 73 churchman from the Reformed Church in America, “ ‘evangelism’ was regarded as a worn-out, effete term.”

Flexibility as the Secret

Undoubtedly some people are disappointed to learn that Key 73 cannot be explained as a schedule of prepackaged events. Most of us prefer the security of having things well mapped out in advance. But it’s not that way with Key 73; prepackaging has been carefully avoided. From the beginning, promoters of the idea agreed that Key 73 would have to be characterized by flexibility if it was going to be an effort in which Christians of all stripes could share. They saw that, given the great differences that exist within North American Christendom, the only way to get any sort of coordination is to provide for considerable program latitude. And so Key 73 is whatever any participating group wants it to be.

So far, this flexibility has had great appeal. It helps the Key 73 concept fit in with modern organizational thinking, with its emphasis on spin-off task forces rather than tight structures.

But what is more important is that spiritual revival cannot be programmed anyway. All we can do is try to meet the conditions as we see them. In planning their part in Key 73, Christians will not, it is hoped, fall into the old error of setting rigid ministry patterns and then asking the Holy Spirit to fit into them. We need to stay loose and allow God to work as he pleases.

Key 73 is best described simply as an all-out evangelistic effort. It seeks to confront the people on our continent more fully and more forcefully with the Gospel of Jesus Christ by proclamation and demonstration, witness and ministry, word and deed. It is an attempt at evangelistic saturation, or what might be called a Christian blitz. The only undertakings roughly parallel have been the Evangelism-in-Depth programs in Latin America and their counterpart enterprises in Africa and Asia. Participating units are developing their own programs and will carry them out simultaneously in 1973. There will probably be cooperation in the use of mass media to prepare the way and to reinforce efforts at the personal and community levels.

How It Began

Key 73 has been more than five years in the making. An editorial in CHRISTIANITY TODAY on June 9, 1967, entreated all evangelicals, “Somehow, Let’s Get Together.” A heartening mail response prompted then editor Carl F. H. Henry to arrange a consultation on evangelical unity. Meanwhile, a small group of Southern Baptist churchmen, unaware of this movement, met under a spiritual burden for more intensive Christian outreach. When messengers to the 1967 sessions of the Southern Baptist Convention turned a petition from this group over to the SBC’s evangelistic staff coordinators for implementation, the concerns of the two groups merged. A joint exploratory meeting, financed by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, brought together forty churchmen at the Marriott Key Bridge Motor Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, September 28–30 of that year. Henry Bast moved and Alistair Walker seconded a motion to explore the possibility of a transdenominational campaign in 1973. It carried unanimously.

Then came a long shaking-down period with little evident progress. The people chosen to pursue the idea were on a pioneering venture and had to feel their way slowly. During this time they were getting to know one another and measuring the difficulties and opportunities. Meanwhile, with each meeting more denominations and groups became interested. An executive committee of sixteen persons was set up, along with a larger central committee. The latter, composed of one representative from each participating group, serves as a policy-making legislative assembly. Dr. Thomas F. Zimmerman, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, is chairman of both.

A small secretariat operates out of offices in downtown St. Louis (418 Olive Street). It is headed by Dr. Theodore A. Raedeke, who served fourteen years with the evangelism department of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

So far the only hard “program” for Key 73 is a breakdown into six phases, some of which overlap chronologically. The first two, focusing upon repentance and prayer and then Bible study, begin at Thanksgiving 1972. Then comes a general emphasis on the Resurrection and the new life, the latter phase extending through the summer. The fall will include concentration on proclamation, and the last phase will be a call to commitment.

As it appears now, the national coordination will be mainly concerned with voluntary sharing of materials that are worked up by participating groups, and mass-media efforts. A Congregational Resource Book, the one major joint project, has recently come off the press and is available from the Key 73 secretariat and from the offices of participants that have ordered a supply.

Financing has been difficult. Those who know how hard it is to get denominations and religious organizations to budget substantial donations for cooperative efforts think Key 73 has not done badly. But no large gifts have been received, and the secretariat has had to operate very stringently, with the cash-flow problem always looming ahead. A professional fund-raising group is now at work to see how much money can be collected for whatever is to be done as a cooperative Key 73 witness—as in mass media.

There are other obstacles and deficiencies, to be sure. It is not at all clear, for example, how persons in the churches are going to be motivated to show more compassion for their neighbors; yet an evangelistic endeavor can hardly be successful if such interest is not quickened. If Key 73 is going to amount to anything it must move the evangelistic spotlight from the pulpit to the pew.

A program blind spot, from the biblical viewpoint, is the absence of attention to thanksgiving. Some vocal participants in Key 73 have campaigned against any recognition of Thanksgiving Day because it is a “national” observance; religious involvement, they contend, would raise the specter of civil religion. There is more risk, however, if protest elements in North American society weigh so heavily upon our culture that many think they have little or nothing to be thankful for. The Bible contains severe warnings about the consequences of ingratitude.

Participating denominations and groups are responsible for bringing Key 73 from the committee rooms to the grass roots. So far, the word has not filtered down very well. Laymen by and large are still unaware of Key 73. The Christian community is going to have to work fast. A great potential for putting Key 73 over rests with “turned-on” young people, but few have as yet become involved. There is a special need for seminaries, Bible schools, and Christian colleges to get busy when they gather for their fall term.

Officials of the United Methodist Church are doing an exceptionally good job of getting information and materials into the hands of pastors. So are a few smaller denominations like the Christian and Missionary Alliance. If there are bottlenecks in such communions, they are at the local congregational level. In most other denominations the tie-ups are at higher levels.

Predictable criticism of Key 73 has come from both religious extremes, left and right. The left tends to see salvation solely in a political context, so that efforts to confront individuals with the Gospel leave it cold. The right takes such a hard line on separation that cooperation in spiritual endeavors is well nigh impossible.

A credibility gap is opening up for some supposed separatists, however. They seem ever more eager to raise large umbrellas for their politicking—which invariably is laced with Christian preaching. There are also small signs that the separation argument may be losing steam. Not long ago the Sword of the Lord, edited by John R. Rice, featured a 1950 sermon delivered by the late Bob Jones Sr. in which the famous evangelist pleaded for cooperation in soul-winning. “There is no reason on earth why Christian people cannot get together on a basis of understanding,” Jones said.

Fundamentalists and Fellowship

Jones spoke these words before the polarization of the fifties that divided him from other evangelical leaders. Still, it suggests that there are instincts toward cooperation even among those who are commonly thought to have closed their minds to it. Jones repeated an illustration he had used many times: “If a hound dog came to my town barking for Jesus, I wouldn’t ask him what theological seminary he had gone to. I wouldn’t sit back and criticize his bark. If he is barking for Jesus, he is my man. A man who is out for souls is my man.”

Some evangelicals are wary that liberals may try to use Key 73 for ulterior purposes, and there are some grounds for such anxiety. The head of one major denomination is said to feel that the action has moved to things like Key 73 and has ordered his staff to become deeply involved. Whether this attitude is a conscientious change of heart or merely an attempt to pacify an ever more restless laity is a reasonable question.

Our One Big Chance

Whatever the answer, evangelicals have an important stake in Key 73. If they persevere and keep exerting the initiative that has characterized them, the outcome will be all to the good. Although many aspects of Key 73 could be criticized, still one can ask: Who is doing any better, or any more? Key 73 seems to be proving its ability to mobilize Christians for energetic witness to their faith. The opportunities outweigh the risks.

Fortunately, Key 73 has managed to gain ground without identifying with controversial personalities or pet theories. It has come as far as it has because of a deep-seated yearning to unlock the door to America’s spiritual heart. Our prayer should be that it will set off a Third Great Awakening.

A “classified ad” in a paper distributed by United Methodists for Church Renewal put the opportunity picturesquely:

GARDENING: For dry and withered grass roots, use “Key-73.” Amazing new discovery makes stony, thorny soil fertile for growth of sown Word.… Send no money. Accept no substitutes.

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