GO TELL’ deploys students to reach their towns, schools
Eighty-five saved, 40-plus called to ministry during SBTC-sponsored camp.
Written by Jerry Pierce, Managing Editor
Posted Tuesday, July 19, 2005
NACOGDOCHES—More than 540 youth and adult sponsors were deployed from Stephen F. Austin University July 1 to spread “the fires of revival to their homes, churches, schools, and communities” after a week of an SBTC-sponsored youth camp called “GO TELL.”
More than 85 students prayed to receive Christ and more than 40 surrendered to a ministry calling, said Brad Bunting, SBTC youth evangelism associate. The week included discipleship and evangelism training, high-energy worship services and several servant outreach projects to the Nacogdoches community.
Rick Gage, founder and director of GO TELL camps, part of Atlanta-based Rick Gage Ministries, said the Nacogdoches camp would hopefully lay the groundwork for other GO TELL camps in Texas in future years. This was the first collaboration between the SBTC and GO TELL camps.
The theme for the camp was “The Awakening.” Lanyards students wore around their necks featured the camp logo and an alarm clock—a reminder, Bunting said, of the need for God “to bring a fresh awakening to our country.”
“The whole alarm clock idea is that it’s time for us to wake up and be a witness for Christ and make an impact on the culture.”
Preachers for the camp included pastors Kie Bowman of Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin and Frank Harber of First Baptist Church of Colleyville, evangelist Ronnie Hill and Gage, a football coach-turned-preacher and a son of longtime Texas evangelist Freddie Gage.
Bunting said the camp differs from many other camps because it is intentionally evangelistic in its preaching and training. And, “They call the students out to live for something beyond themselves,” he said.
Evening services typically last about 90 minutes, but on the final night the service, led by Gage, went three hours.
“He really challenged the students to have a burden for lost people and to basically realize what it means for a person to be lost and to remember that people are actually going to hell and that hell is a real place,” Bunting said.
Students flooded the altar; some walked the aisle in support of friends making first-time commitments for Christ. Others responded to a ministry calling.
“Students and their leaders left the Nacogdoches camp eternally changed—carrying the fires of revival to their homes, churches, schools, and communities,” Gage told the TEXAN.
Of the 540 registrants, about 75 were adults trained in building evangelistic student ministries by Norman Flowers of the North American Mission Board.
“Norman gave the adults some very practical tips on how to make their student ministries more outreach oriented by changing the dynamics and priorities of their youth groups,” Bunting said.
During a Wednesday morning session taught by the SBTC’s Jennifer Dean, about 275 girls gathered for a session on “relationships, purity, modesty, how to be a godly young lady,” Bunting said.
Also on Wednesday, droves of students converged on a local Wal-Mart parking lot, offering free car washes with no donations accepted. There, two people prayed to receive Christ “and numerous other seeds were planted” as students shared the gospel with those they served, Bunting said.
During another outreach project, done in cooperation with Fredonia Hill Baptist Church in Nacogdoches that involved canvassing neighborhoods in the area, two more people prayed to receive Christ.
According to Census Bureau numbers, America will have more teens in 2006 than at any previous time, Gage noted.
“Of the two million teens in Texas, one million are not connected with any church whatsoever. … It’s time for us to do everything we can to reach America’s youth and to lead them to make a difference for Christ.”
The GO TELL camp was one of several SBTC-sponsored student events this summer. A Pre-Teen Camp in June at Latham Springs drew 350 kids; 35 prayed to receive Christ.
Also, a joint Summer Worship University and Student Leadership Training camp (see story, page 7) held at Schreiner University in Kerrville June 20-24 drew 172 students from 50 churches across Texas, said Ken Lasater, SBTC church ministry support associate.
