July 9, 2001

Four-step program gets teens hooked on evangelism
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___ROCKWALL--Norman Flowers teaches Texas teenagers how to fish at school.
___The Texas Baptist pastor's son is evangelist more than angler, however. And he's more likely to be found demonstrating the Bible than a bobber.
___As a national missionary with the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board, Flowers' responsibility is to teach Texas junior high and high school students how to start FISH clubs on their campuses. His work is co-sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___FISH is a simple acronym for the four-week cycle these clubs follow.
___The first week is focus week, in which Christian teens gather and pray in small groups, making note of friends or schoolmates for whom they will pray.
___The second is inspiration week, where a guest speaker challenges students to live out their faith on campus.
___Third is share week, when two or three students share testimonies with the group.
___Fourth is hook week, when the students invite the non-
Christian friends they've been praying for to join the session. A teen speaker presents the plan of salvation at this meeting.
___After that, the cycle starts over again, with students who have become Christians joining the process.
___God has blessed this simple strategy for student evangelism as it has been used in schools across Texas, Flowers said.
___The FISH strategy differs from other campus Bible clubs in that its purpose is not Bible study but evangelism, he explained. FISH meetings, which students often give other names appropriate for their school, last only 20 to 30 minutes and are held either before school or at lunch.
___The strategy works not only because it's simple but because it's student-led, Flowers said. "Students can take the curriculum and do the ministry."
___Christian teens also learn to "be missionaries where they are," he said, noting that school campuses are a much better place than churches to find non-Christian teens.
___"Ninety percent of all lost students go to school," he said half-jokingly. Then he added seriously, "But they're not coming to our churches."
___Although the FISH strategy is simple, Flowers' ultimate goal is much more difficult. He wants to see the strategy used on all 3,000 junior high and high school campuses in Texas to tell 2 million Texas teens about Jesus.
___He hopes to make big strides toward that goal this summer, as he speaks at youth camps and the BGCT Youth Evangelism Conference. "By the end of the summer, we will have 20,000 more students trained."
___By the end of the school year just concluded, the FISH strategy had begun showing results in a number of Texas communities.
___"Every time we have a hook week, we have someone who responds to Christ. Sometimes it's four, sometimes it's two or three, sometimes its one," said Jay Cleveland, youth minister at Coronado Baptist Church in El Paso. "It's been very effective here in evangelizing the campuses."
___At Coronado High School in Lubbock, a group of about five Christian students began using the FISH strategy, but they were doubtful that anyone would come to hook day, reported Mike Martindale, minister to students at Bacon Heights Baptist Church.
___The result, however, was about 20 students in attendance and six professions of faith.
___"The thing I like about it is it gives students a track to run on," Martindale said. "We've been saying to go evangelize your friends, in essence boiled down to bring your friends to church. This gives them a strategy for applying the Great Commission."
___More information about the FISH student evangelism strategy is available online at www.catchthis.net or by calling Flowers at (972) 771-2322. His e-mail address is christ2share@hotmail.com.
___Flowers is no newcomer to Texas Baptist life or youth ministry. The son of longtime Texas Baptist pastor Kenneth Flowers, he grew up in Iowa Park. Before assuming the statewide role, he was youth minister at Northside Baptist Church in Victoria.

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