July 23, 2001

RENE DYAS shares Christ with Devona Rodriguez during Vacation Bible School at the Alazon community building in San Antonio.

YEC pumps up 10,000 teens for witness
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___SAN ANTONIO--Thousands of Texas teenagers were challenged to become a "revival generation" when they converged on the Alamodome July 13-14 for the annual Youth Evangelism Conference.
___While in San Antonio, they did some of the things necessary to be such a generation. They made public commitments to Christ, worshipped God together, received evangelism

MODERN DAY JOHN, a Houston band, performs prior to the start of the Youth Evangelism Conference. (Photos by Ferrell Foster)

training, prayed, made plans to start Christian clubs on their school campuses and participated in mission projects.
___This year's conference attracted 9,647 youth and their adult leaders. Before they left, 140 of them had professed faith in Christ, 433 had recommitted their lives to Christ and 28 had acknowledged a call to vocational ministry. The annual event is sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___At one point, luminescent lime-green crosses dangling from the necks of teens shined in the darkness surrounding the brightly lit Alamodome stage.
___Chuck Flowers, BGCT director of youth evangelism, marveled at "the passion I see in students in our worship."
___Several Christian singers and bands--Mercy Me, Phil Joel, Joy Williams, Salvador and Tree 63--led the music portion of worship. Two drama duos--Ted and Nancie Lowe and The Skit Guys--highlighted practical aspects of the Christian life.
___Norman Flowers, a national missionary with the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board, encouraged the teenagers to use the _"FISH" strategy for evangelizing their school campuses. Jon Randles, an evangelist from Lubbock, provided the keynote addresses.
___Before the event began, hundreds of Texas teens prepared by participating in mission projects in San Antonio, in "Risk It" student evangelism training and in a coordinated prayerwalk in and around the Alamodome.
___Flowers said afterward that the Youth Evangelism Conference accomplished one of his

CAMPUSES around the state were marked with push-pins in places where students have committed to start Christian clubs.

main goals, getting the FISH evangelism strategy before the students. FISH is a four-week approach that can be used by campus Christian clubs to introduce others to Christ.
___The strategy was featured in the July 9 issue of the Baptist Standard.
___During the San Antonio conference, 947 students committed themselves to starting FISH clubs on more than 500 campuses. Similar clubs in Texas and around the country have been averaging five to 10 professions of faith each month.
___Randles spoke during both conference sessions. He warned that Christian symbols and music "aren't going to win your school" for Christ. Other teenagers are "watching your character ... to see if you're living differently."
___Preaching from Revelation 12, Randles cited three ways to be a revival generation.
___First, "as individuals you have to make a decision to come under the blood of the Lamb. ... There's got to be a moment in time when you personally pass under the blood and invite Jesus into your heart."
___Second, believers must give God "the word of your testimony." There is good and bad in everyone, Randles said. The Christian must give God the good, that God might shape and chisel it into usable form.
___And the believer must allow God to "cut out surgically" the bad, he added. "There's some stuff that you just have to stop."
___Third, "you have to love his cause more than you love your own life," Randles said.
___Most people have their own agenda in life, he noted. But on successful sports team

TWO GIRLS pray during commitment time at the Youth Evangelism Conference.

s, the players adopt the coach's agenda as their own, he said, explaining that Christians should accept God's agenda for their lives.
___"You guys really could be a revival generation," Randles said in his second message. "The things that people are going to watch are your character."
___There are always winners and losers in life, but "everybody can be one of the winners," he said. To be a winner, a believer must embrace the character traits of the first century church revealed in the second chapter of Acts, he declared.
___First, "you're going to have to get desperate. ... The people who change the world are not the talented ones, ... it's those who are desperate."
___Second, winning Christians focus on the basics, such as prayer, Bible study, attendance at church and commitment to purity and holiness, he said.
___Third, the believer needs a sense of awe and wonder. "God doesn't work where he's not wanted," Randles said. "If you want failure, you can have it. ... God will give you your heart."
___If students are to win their campuses for Christ, God has plenty of power, he said. "There is no limit ... to what your generation can do. You are a chosen generation. I believe in you."
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