Temple Baptist Life

The bible tells us in Isaiah chapter 6 how Isaiah’s’ life changed when he sees God in heaven. Surrounding him are seraphim singing “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The earth is filled with his glory.” In Gods’ perfect light he sees his own unholiness. He sees his sin and shame and says “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips and I live among a people with filthy lips.” His sins are then taken away through Gods fire. Then God asked “Whom shall I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?” Isaiah replied “Here I am. Send me”.

The Dare 2 Share conference our youth group recently attended was modeled after this scripture.

Friday evening began with scripture, testimony, stories and worship music. We were able to get a glimpse of who God really is. At the end of the first night an invitation was given. Hundreds of teens accepted Christ for the first time. Two from our group. Praise God! Several others recommitted themselves.

The first act of a play began with great intensity. The play was about a Christian girl whose friend died. She had not shared the Gospel with him and his unsaved soul was in Hell. The characters in the play received a video tape from him and the torment that was now his fate. The drama was gut wrenching and very intense. As I looked down the row of seats at our kids, tears flowed as the reality of Hell was realized. I was nearly sick to my stomach as the thoughts raced through my own mind of people I need to share the Gospel with. So many in our group were completely broken by what we were seeing through the drama.

Before the night ended we worshiped God with a renewed thankfulness for His Grace. All of the adults in our Group had been ministering to our kids as we talked about the nights’ events. Wow!

Day two started with more worship, teaching, stories, scripture and testimony. Vickie and I attended a leader conference in the morning and were energized and refocused. As we rejoined our group a new series of short plays had each of us looking inward at our own sin and shame. As a symbolic way to let God forgive our sin the kids wrote down on paper their most shameful sin. Later they tore them to pieces and were laid at central cross in the arena. We told each child that God forgave them and God loves them. Many more tears. Tears of joy and relief!

After returning from lunch we learned some new techniques to share the Gospel. The Goal of the Dare 2 Share is to have kids evangelize and share the Gospel in every school in our country. That’s 67,342 schools in the United States! Sounds like a lofty Goal? In our Group we had kids from four schools represented. At the Denver conference where several thousand teens from 11 different states. Possibly a thousand schools were represented. Our kids were energized and could not wait to start sharing the Gospel.

At the dinner break was a prayer walk at an assigned school in Denver. This was a touching time for our group. As we walked the campus of a school we picked up trash and prayed for the school and individual students at that school. We walked a second time around the school grounds and prayed for our own schools and students at our school.

After dinner we returned for the second act of the main drama re-emphasizing Heaven, Hell and sharing the Gospel. We ended the night in worship. Isn’t God Great!

In between it all we shared laughs, played whiffle ball, ate pizza, and talked openly of God. We began to formulate a plan for sharing God with all the students of Salida. I truly believe that God broke nearly everyone down for different reasons at this event. And then filled us back up for a deeper relationship with Him. Vickie and I could never have ministered to our group and my heartfelt appreciation goes out to Ron McCarty and Cindy Smith for all you did. Also to Bobby Orzechowski and Jessi Smith as young adult sponsors.

I hope to share more with you in the next newsletter.