Tyler churches unite to win 970 youth
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___TYLER--One of the best-known drug users at a Tyler school now leads a prayer group there.
___The boy was among 970 teenagers who made first-time professions of faith in Christ during a citywide youth revival that brought together 140 churches of multiple denominations in a unified evangelism effort.
___Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Bible churches, Church of Christ and non-denominational churches joined together to support "Fish the Planet," a four-day youth revival that extended into nearly a week.
___"I've never seen anything like it," said RJ Holt, one of the event's organizers and youth minister at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Tyler. "I just pray that I get to see this again in my lifetime."
___Now, Holt and other youth ministers in the Tyler area are working overtime to follow up with each of the 1,300 teenagers who registered a spiritual decision, including the 970 who professed new faith in Christ.
___In an unprecedented spirit of cooperation, ministers from various Christian churches have laid aside turf considerations and are referring teens to other churches where they are likely to find the best personal match, Holt said.
___"There is more than enough for everybody," he explained.
___Amid the follow-up work, Holt and other event organizers are getting calls from parents they've never met. "I don't know what's different about my kid, but thank you," the parents often say.
___The results of "Fish the Planet" are visible in numerous ways in Tyler--not only in the observations of parents who wonder what has happened to their children, but also in continuing morning prayer gatherings around school flagpoles and in the trash dumpster at the Oil Palace coliseum.
___Each night of the youth revival, six 55-gallon barrels were placed near the platform, and teens were invited to throw away anything that would stand in the way of serving God fully. Hall said he saw teens throw away marijuana, cocaine, bongs, pornography, CDs, pirated software, even teddy bears.
___"Every night, kids filled them with stuff they wanted to throw away," he said.
___The unusual events in Tyler began Feb. 23 with 30 churches working together for a citywide DiscipleNow emphasis. DiscipleNow is a youth discipleship program in which teens spend a whole weekend in small groups in homes of church members. Small-group activities are supplemented with large-group activities at the host church.
___In this case, however, the participating churches banded together to create big events for all the small groups from each church to do together. Evangelist Ken Freeman, who also led the "Fish the Planet" crusade the next week, was part of the DiscipleNow event.
___The combined youth groups also did community service projects, cleaning every public park and school campus in the city.
___On Saturday night, Feb. 24, 1,800 Tyler youth participating in DiscipleNow came together for a rally. They studied a simple evangelistic program called "Sharing Jesus without Fear," and then each teen was encouraged to go find a friend to bring to the "Fish the Planet" rally starting Sunday night.
___Holt said his church got a preview of what was coming that Sunday morning when 19 youth made professions of faith during morning worship at Colonial Hills.
___Seeing those youth and the friends who had brought them to church lined up across the front of the worship center was "amazing," he said.
___Sunday night, the first night of "Fish the Planet," about 2,500 people attended the crusade. Attendance swelled each night, with 6,000 present Wednesday night, what was scheduled to be the final night. Adults were asked to give up seats for teens, and even those who were on hand as counselors had to make way for the overflow crowd, Holt said.
___Because of the response, the crusade was extended two more nights.
___Holt and the event's other organizers--Don Allensworth of Green Acres Baptist Church and Cody Bishop of Sharon Baptist Church--structured each night's service to be mainly preaching. They were concerned, he said, that too many Christian youth events now devote most of their time to worship music and not enough to teaching and preaching.
___Freeman turned out to be the perfect speaker for such an event, Holt said. "I've never heard anybody hold attention like he did."
___During the daytime, Freeman spoke in nine area high schools and middle schools, with an emphasis on making good life choices. He told about his own struggles with family problems and drugs. A theme of the presentations, Holt said, was "if you listen to bad voices, you'll make bad choices."
___At the evening crusade, Freeman spoke more explicitly about how he overcame trouble through faith in Jesus Christ.
___Holt estimates that nearly 40 percent of all the middle school and high students within a 30-mile radius of Tyler attended at least one night of the crusade.
___"God did what we never thought would happen," he said.
___The modern-day miracle in Tyler was preceded by a scheduling miracle. Organizers of "Fish the Planet" began planning in November, far too late to book a youth evangelist like Freeman, who normally is scheduled at least 18 months out.
___But Holt, Allensworth and Bishop were convinced Freeman was the person they needed. So they picked a date as they met together and prayed. Later that morning, Allensworth called the person who schedules Freeman's crusades.
___Allensworth was told that earlier that morning, about the time the Tyler trio had been praying, a first in Freeman's ministry had occurred. Two churches in different locations called the same morning to cancel engagements with Freeman. The two dates that had just opened up were the front end and back end of the same week.
___And that week was the very week the Tyler churches wanted Freeman to come preach at "Fish the Planet."
___That, Holt said, was the first sign that something bigger than they could imagine was about to happen.
___For his part, Freeman said he knew something big was on the way when he showed up in Tyler a month before "Fish the Planet" for a pre-event rally. Four hundred people attended that rally, and 35 professions of faith were recorded.
___He commended the united Tyler churches for their cooperation, preparation and promotion.
___"These churches came together, tore down those walls of competitiveness and said, 'Let's just reach people for the kingdom.'"
___The result of this unity, he said, was "one of the biggest events I've ever seen in my ministry."
___"This is what we ought to be doing, just coming together and preaching the gospel and seeing lives changed," Freeman said. "We're not going to stop the school shootings, but we could slow it down if we could reach the kids. If we as communities could come together and tear down our religious walls, we could slow it down."
The Baptist Standard
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