FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)–They traveled coast to coast, across the border, up peaks, down mountains and through mesas. They crossed cultures, time zones and ravines of their own inadequacies. They used everything from basketball to preaching, from praying to skiing, from observation to hands-on ministry, all with the same goal –share the saving message of Jesus Christ. And they did it all during their only week of vacation during the semester spring break.
Nearly 150 Southwesterners dispersed throughout the United States and Mexico during spring break, March 16-20, to minister through revivals, sports clinics, resort ministries, prayer walking and church ministries.
For the 39th consecutive year, the spring evangelism practicum sent 94 aspiring preachers to 100 churches in 29 states outside the Bible Belt. For some the experience was inaugural and eye opening as God moved in unexpected directions.
Eric Reese, from Albany, Ga., arrived in Chicago after a heart-wrenching decision to preach instead of assist his family in his flooded hometown. When no one arrived to pick him up at the airport and he had heard no word from his church Sunday morning, Reese admitted his doubt about making the right decision. Later that morning, after church should have started, the 73-year-old pastor of New Bethel Missionary Baptist came for Reese. He had been shoveling his car out of snow since 7 a.m. “The church was financially strapped. The pipes were showing through the floor,” said Reese. “God said to me, ‘You encourage that pastor.’”
“This is a program with a broken heart,” said Jim Gatliff, student from Mustang, Okla., said of the spring evangelism practicum, which this year resulted in over 700 public decisions.
Gatliff has participated in spring break trips for nine consecutive years and preached from New York to New Mexico. “We go weeping, broken over our own failure to witness in awe of God’s blessing for the lost,” he said. “It breaks my heart to know that during my flight, two out of three people I’m flying over are lost. As long as we go with tears in our eyes, God will bless those tears.”
Some of the lost in America live in virtually inaccessible areas. For 19 years Bob Brackney, professor of social work and ministry-based evangelism, has taken Southwestern students to his home state of New Mexico where they experience firsthand the challenges of reaching Native Americans.
While many Indian reservations are closed to any outside religious influence in an effort to revive native religions, students were able to visit native Pueblo Indians and Anglo missionaries, including a Southwestern graduate, who work among the Acoma, Santa Clara, Jemez and Taos pueblos.
“I was impacted by the sacrifices made to work among the Pueblo,” said Alyssa Graves, student from Florida. “One family labored together to translate the ‘Jesus’ film into the Taos language, even voicing the speaking parts. This trip was a time of re-focus; sometimes we forget what the Christian life is to be about until we see people out there doing it.”
An unfamiliar culture south of the U.S. border welcomed a group of Southwestern sports evangelists in Los Mochis, Mexico. The team held sports clinics in conjunction with the local school system. As Southwesterners taught techniques of basketball, volleyball and American football, government and school officials, teachers and parents stood observing.
“Because we were from America and were viewed as sports figures since some team members played college ball, we were a big drawing card,” said Gaye Anne Willis, student from Georgia and former volleyball player at the University of Georgia.
Though the team could not speak of their faith during official clinics, they invited participants to stay afterward when each team member shared testimonies. “The over 300 kids who came have an obvious commitment to sports,” said Willis. “We shared that our commitment is to Jesus, who is still there when sports fail us or when we can’t play anymore.”
Another group of Southwesterners picked up their skis and backpacks as they trekked into the world of resort and leisure ministry. Seven students scattered across America’s vacation spots in Las Vegas; Big Sky, Mont.; Yosemite National Park, Calif.; and Orlando, Fla. Cheri-Lynn Wyman, student from Vancouver, Canada, visited Yosemite and discovered unconventional ministries such as worship walks and worship-centered, rather than drug-centered, gatherings of park employees and their instruments in the forest.
“This is a seed-planting ministry,” said Wyman. “You open the door for someone else, and fruit may not appear until years later. Numbers-wise resort churches will never grow, but that doesn’t mean they’re not building God’s church. They focus on getting people involved not in their particular congregation but wherever they live. Resort ministry builds Christ’s body.”
“Resort ministry is not for everybody,” said Gary Millsaps, student from Woodstock, Ga. who visited Big Sky, Mont. He hopes to start a hunting and fishing ministry in the South. “Often there is no Christian base and times can get lonely. This is real world, seven days a week, 24-hours-a-day stuff. Many of the methods we used in the typical Baptist church must be thrown out the window.”
Prayer works everywhere, however, as a prayer walking team from Southwestern discovered in Maryland, Delaware and Washington. They walked block after block of crime and drug-infested areas praying a blanket of protection for the community. They laid hands on the town hall directory and prayed for city government. In Washington, they prayer walked through the House of Representatives, Senate and White House and laid hands on the doors of the Supreme Court. Two team members were asked to spend a night praying in Rheobeth Beach, Del., an eastern shore center of homosexuality. Everything from billboards to undeveloped property prompted prayer.
“We could pray for this area using information from the Internet, but we couldn’t know to pray specifically for Elk Ridge Baptist, Oak Ridge Baptist, or New Hope Baptist without being there and seeing their needs,” said Clegg Taylor, student from Spartanburg, S.C. “Prayer walking or prayer driving or prayer flying is life-changing because it opens your eyes to specific needs. This will revolutionize my chaplain ministry. I’ll be more in touch with people and the prayers I lift for them will be more personal and heartfelt. I see a lot now that I never saw before.”
A group of students enjoyed a renewed vision of the church body in action as they visited First Baptist, Leesburg, Fla. The church has a reputation for being on the “cutting edge of ministry,” according to Tia Andoe, student from Guntersville, Ala.
The church has a rescue mission for men, a women’s care center, a children’s foster care center, a crisis pregnancy care center, a medical ministry, a nursing home ministry, a bus ministry that promotes Saturday night Sunday school, a before and after school program, a fine arts program, a benevolence ministry and a car care ministry.
“There are ministry-based activities going on seven days a week,” said Andoe. The church recognizes every member as called-out ministers who are to serve their Jerusalem.”
“We witnessed an example of the church meeting people where they are and ministering to them at the point of their need,” said Tomi Grover, student from Gainesville, Fla. “It’s the way the church should be doing business.”
