July 22, 2002
Amarillo keeps revival light shining
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___AMARILLO--A cooperative effort between Amarillo Baptist Association and the Baptist General Convention of Texas has kept Shine Out youth-led revivals beaming brightly in the association's churches.
___When Roy Kornegay, director of missions for Amarillo Association, learned that the BGCT would not continue the youth-led revival program this year, he felt certain the churches in his association still had an interest in it.
___Kornegay has a personal affection for the Shine Out revivals because he became a Christian in a youth-led revival in the mid-1940s and preached on two youth revival teams in the 1950s.
___The BGCT determined to make its change because of changing times, explained Chuck Flowers, youth evangelism consultant in the BGCT's Center for Stategic Evangelism.
___"Funding was not a problem. One of the primary reasons we decided to discontinue the program was the difficulty in recruiting quality students to be members of the teams," he said. "Students now have so many different avenues for service, like serving as summer missionaries in places around the United States and a number of foreign countries and working in camp situations, that it is harder to recruit quality students."
___A number of university Baptist Student Ministries have established their own youth revival teams, so in some situations the BGCT Shine Out teams were duplicating efforts.
___Even so, the BGCT has been highly supportive of Amarillo Association's efforts to keep the Shine Out light glowing there, Kornegay said. The BGCT has provided all the training materials and paid the expenses for a consultant to travel to Amarillo to conduct training.
___"We could not have done this without Chuck Flowers and the BGCT," Kornegay said. "If we had to bear all the expense, we might have been able to do it, but it would have been very difficult."
___The team members share a car for which the association picks up the expenses, and each member of the team receives a $15-per-week stipend. In addition, the churches in which they minister collect love offerings for them.
___Because several church leaders in the association also felt the program was of value, Baptist Student Ministry Directors Buddy Young and Gary Stidham began the process of selecting the three-person team. Out of the selection process, Anthony Watt was chosen as team leader and preacher, Sarah Rice as music leader and children's coordinator, and Sean Cooley as youth leader. Watt and Cooley attend West Texas A&M in Canyon, and Rice is a sophomore at Amarillo College.
___Youth-led revivals spawned a new form of college ministries in the 1940s and '50s. After falling off for a period of years, the concept was revitalized at the BGCT in 1990 when Flowers joined the staff from Paramount Baptist Church in Amarillo. Kornegay believes Amarillo Association is the only Texas association to participate in the Shine Out program every year since its reinstatement.
___And that may be part of the reason the churches there see the program as vital, he suggested.
___"We've done it for 11 years. That's 99 times these teams have contributed to the ministry of the churches in our assocation," Kornegay said. "Through that, many churches have caught the vision of the dual ministry of the program--not only does the church benefit, but the church is at the same time ministering to these students by giving them an opportunity to serve."
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