TBM supports evangelistic outreach in North Dakota

Seventeen Texas Baptist Men volunteers provided 4,500 meals and other support for a multifaceted evangelistic crusade spread across 68 North Dakota communities this summer.

Texas Baptist Men volunteers cooked meals for the Revive Seattle evangelistic emphasis earlier this year. (PHOTOS/Courtesy of Texas Baptist Men)The Time to Revive evangelistic organization, based in Richardson, sponsored the six-day Revive Devils Lake emphasis, which involved 430 volunteers from 14 North Dakota churches who covered 9,900 square miles sharing the gospel.

TBM workers set up a disaster relief field kitchen on the parking lot of Bethel Evangelical Free Church in Devils Lake, N.D., to prepare meals. They traveled up to 45 miles daily, delivering meals to a different venue each day.

Local families opened their homes to the TBM volunteers, and Ken Peacock from Atlanta, in East Texas, recalled how the grandfather of one host family helped serve meals and make repairs.

“Our hostess told us that her dad had been hurt by a church and was not attending church anywhere. Here among godly men and women, he felt loved,” Peacock said.

Volunteers lead a Kids’ Club during the Revive Devils Lake evangelistic emphasis this summer.Revive Devils Lake included street evangelism, Kids’ Clubs, community ministry, jail and prison ministry, worship events and discipleship training for local churches. By the end of the week, volunteers had engaged in 263 gospel-centered conversations that resulted in 82 faith commitments to Christ. During a worship service at the end of the week, new believers baptized in a lake included a family of four.

Before the emphasis, planners hoped to enlist at least 19 people to continue sharing the gospel and discipling new believers. To date, 76 people committed to making disciples and participating in twice-monthly evangelistic outreach.

Previously, TBM volunteers provided meals for a Time to Revive emphasis in Seattle in April and in Asheville, N.C., last year.