Praise Report! 9 lives saved and baptized!
In 2023 we launched our summer Community BBQs. Our idea was to have one large outreach per month throughout the summer where we could connect with our Homework Club students, celebrate our community, worship under the stars and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The response was amazing! Hundreds of people came out, many relationships were started, and there were many professions of faith and people baptized. It was a highlight of our year!
Our community and our team had so much fun that almost weekly through the year people would ask us if we were planning on doing them again in 2024. “Of course we will” was our response, being prayerful of the Lord's will. So this year we connected with Chester City in the spring and received approval to host our summer events scheduled for June 13th, July 11th and August 8th. These were the dates we were praying and planning towards with one big question, will God do it again?
Will God do it again?
We are never sure what to expect, but we know that without faith it's impossible to please God. So by faith we start praying for 2024, by faith we would go knock on doors and hand out flyers for our community BBQ’s, by faith we reach out to businesses to partner and donate, and by faith we would ask people to come, volunteer and help.
Our team made tweaks to our set up plan, we figured out ways to be more efficient, provide better audio sound, quicker food, and planned on collecting information for follow up and prayer. We were more intentional about connecting with new families and new students for the 2024-2025 school year. All the elements were needed for successful events.
With the second BBQ night approaching we recruited people to lead worship and new volunteers to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We were set to go, until life arrived. People canceled, schedules shifted, and we were not sure what to do.
The night of July 11 came, we were excited yet confused. Our worship person had an emergency and couldn't come and we had no response for someone to help at the last minute. Once the event started we noticed a slow and steady attendance of about 100 people. This was about half the amount of our 2023 events. To be honest, I started to think that everything was going wrong, like the night would be a total disaster. But God moved.
God Moved!
My favorite part of BBQ nights is around 7:15 when we stop serving food, turn off the slip and slide and bring everyone over to worship and hear the Gospel. In the past this transition time has always been difficult, but 46 people stopped, came and sat down to hear the Word of God. We didn't have worship, but asked our guest speaker Pastor Austin Medley to get right into it.
And it happened. People's hearts were moved, people were engaged, and when it came time - they responded. After Austin's message on faith, I came up to pray and give an invitation to receive Christ and get baptized. One girl raised her hand and came forward, then another, until we had a total of 9 people praying to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior! After we prayed, a large group walked around back to our baptism pool.
After a careful conversation, all of the young adults wanted to be baptized. Some were students from our Homework club, some new kids from the neighborhood, but this night would bond us together as brothers and sisters in Christ.
One by one, we prayed and dunked in the pool. In total 9 baptisms. One of the most amazing evenings of ministry we have had. God did not “redo” an event from last year. He did a NEW work, much more than we could have expected, with the lowest attendance we had had. How cool is that?
At the end of the night we invited everyone to come to Sunday Church, at our ministry house. Then we took time to pray, fellowship and close out the night.
God Moved AGAIN!
That Sunday came quickly, and as we do every Sunday, we pray over our local community and the relationships we have built. As 11:00 am arrived, I looked out the window and saw all 9 young adults coming to Church. The night before there were groups of young adults wandering the streets, and here we have a group of young adults desiring to learn more about Jesus Christ early on a Sunday morning.
There is real hope for real life transformation in a city known for extreme crime and poverty.
God is moving and doing something new and in that we face new challenges.
A few weeks ago our family spent a week at the beach and I was moved with a bit of nostalgia. The smell of the salt water, the sounds of the boardwalk, the taste of the food makes me think of the “Good old Days” as a kid visitings the beach. Nostalgia has a way of saying nothing will ever be as good again. As the years pass, frustrations and difficult times fade away, leaving highlights of only amazing experiences.
It's easy for me to look towards the past and say how amazing those experiences were. Sometimes it is even easy to think all of the good times have passed, but it simply is not true.
Ecclesiastes 7:10 says, “Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions” (NIV).
The best is here and now!
I think that it is good for us to remember our past experiences when the Lord blessed us in the good times and those memories help us through the difficult ones. Such memories help us to weather the present times. Here is the truth, THE GOOD TIMES ARE HERE AND NOW and because of our hope of heaven, the best times are yet to come!
Each moment is a gift, and it’s times like these when 9 souls receive salvation that remind us to keep living for Jesus every moment, you never know who will be influenced.
Please join us in praying for our community and these young adults. Check out the pictures and video of the event HERE and come out to our next Community BBQ on August 8th to see what God will do.