February 9, 2000
Meredith urges Baptists to
reach society's outcasts
___By Dan Martin
___Texas Baptist Communications
___FORT WORTH--Texas Baptists must reach society's rejects or die, Al Meredith warned a crowd of 9,000 people attending the Texas Baptist Evangelism Conference Jan. 31.
___Unless Texas Baptist "start reaching out to the rejects that are all around us that needJesus Christ, who alone has the power to save, we are going to die. And, frankly, good riddance," said Meredith, pastor of Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth.
AL MEREDITH
___Meredith explained he was not speaking at the annual Baptist General Convention of Texas conference because he has the fastest-growing church or because he is the best evangelist in Texas.
___"I am here because last fall--Sept. 15--a deeply disturbed man came into our church armed with 200 rounds of ammunition and a pipe bomb," he said.
___Before the Wedgwood rampage was over, Larry Gene Ashbrook killed seven people and then himself, wounded seven more and "psychologically devastated hundreds more," Meredith said.
___"Everywhere I go, people ask how I'm doing. Then they say they are praying for me. That's how I am doing. I thank you; I bless you; I bless you for your prayers," he said as he encouraged people to continue to pray for the church, its members and all who were touched by the tragedy.
___But the main message he wanted to speak, he said, is this: "God is faithful."
___"God was faithful that night. I should have had 50 to 60 funerals, but God was there protecting us. There were 400 kids there in what could have been a killing field at point-blank range.
___Meredith said he watched a video taken inside the sanctuary that night, and it appeared to him Ashbrook "was being held back by an unseen hand. He could go four or five steps forward and then back up. He did that several times."
___The Wedgwood youth have an explanation for this, he reported. "In the sanctuary, there is only one window and you cannot see it when you first come in. That window over the baptistry pictures the cross. The kids said he went forward, saw the cross, backed up, went forward, saw the cross, backed up again.
___"God was there protecting our people," he said, adding that "in spite of what happened, people are being won to Christ."
___He told of a rally at North Crowley High School where 29 young people gave their lives to Jesus Christ; of a meeting in Oklahoma where 40 became Christians; and of another where 110 gave their lives to Christ.
___In the past, Meredith said, 95 percent of those baptized at Wedgwood were people he had led to faith while talking around the kitchen table. "But in the last three months, strangers are coming down our aisles; people I haven't seen.
___"I know that is not because of me, because it has never been that way before," he confessed. "Two weeks ago, for the first time in my ministry the candidates for baptism had to wear name tags because I didn't know them all. It was wonderful."
___He told of how a North Fort Worth woman came to church on Super Bowl Sunday night. She wept through the sermon and when it was over was approached by several women in the congregation who wanted to help her.
___Meredith recounted that the woman was asked how she found Wedgwood, which is located on the other side of the city. He quoted her as saying, "I have friends in California who told me that if I was having trouble, I should go to that church where all those people were shot."
___She did as her friends suggested and that night became a Christian.
___Meredith described Ashbrook as a frustrated, angry man, a loser, a reject, who was reaching out and no one was there. He told how the man had been a member of a church youth group but had drifted away.
___He told of a young man named Jeremiah who had been a loser, too, but who had been loved and accepted and reached out to by another church.
___Jeremiah confronted Ashbrook in the sanctuary Sept. 15 during the shooting spree, and Meredith said "the spirit of darkness was confronted by the spirit of light. He (Ashbrook) sat down and put the gun to his head and ended the carnage."
___"One of these men had reached out and was rejected; the other had reached out and was accepted."
___Meredith broke into an acapella rendition of an old hymn, "Rescue the perishing, care for the dying. Jesus is merciful. Jesus will save," and the 9,000 people in the arena joined in.
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