at West Georgia Rick Gage GO TELL Crusade
Douglasville, Georgia (Sept. 27, 2010) – A rare appearance of the super harvest moon shone down upon hundreds who turned to Jesus for salvation during the West Georgia Rick Gage GO TELL Crusade in Douglasville, Georgia. Hosted by nearly 40 Douglas County churches, the four-night event took place Sept. 19-22 in the parking lot of Arbor Place Mall off of Interstate 20 at the Chapel Hill Road exit.
“In the parking lot of a mall, we experienced a super harvest,” commented Jerry Adair of County Line Baptist Church in Lithia Springs, one of the crusade’s counseling chairmen. For the entire event, Adair said there were 477 spiritual decisions, including 260 salvation commitments. On the concluding night alone, there were 143 salvation decisions and 90 other spiritual decisions. More than 12,000 attended the event.
GO TELL evangelists Rick Gage and Rick Stanley also spoke to 15,000 students in the county’s 13 middle and high schools in 22 ON TRACK School Assemblies, said Kevin Williams, minister to students at the First Baptist Church of Douglasville. Gage said he is “especially grateful” to the Douglas County Board of Education and School District.
While they were not allowed to speak of Jesus, Gage and Stanley did encourage the students to avoid addictions. They also invited them to attend the closing night of the crusade when free Chick-fil-A sandwiches and drinks were given away courtesy of Crusade Chairman Mike Moore of Chick-fil-A. More than 5,000 attended that Wednesday night service, keeping the more than 300 counselors busy with hundreds of decisions for Christ.
The thousands in attendance were invited to sing along with worship leader Chuck Sullivan, his band and guest singer Joy Fowler. On Tuesday night, the guest evangelist was Tony Nolan, author of “The Hurt Healer” and tour pastor and Gospel communicator for Casting Crowns Lifesong Tour and Winter Jam, the largest Christian concert tour in America, visiting more than 119 cities and experiencing more than 87,000 public professions of faith in Christ. Other GO TELL guest artists were Outcast BMX, A Ransom Plea, Edenfield and Don Dodds.
The Rick Gage GO TELL Crusade also occurred during the first anniversary of the devastating 500-year flood that claimed the lives of seven Douglas County residents, damaged 170 roads and bridges and flooded many homes.
“We had another flood this week, rolling down those hills, surrounding the parking lot, wave after wave, flowing down as hundreds got saved,” said Randy Shirley, pastor of Chapel Hill Baptist Church in Douglasville. “It’s been the biggest blessing of my life to see what happened the last four nights.”
“The real value is to be part of a movement of God with churches of different tags,” observed Barnabas Sprinkle, evangelist with the First Presbyterian Church of Douglasville of the PC(USA) denomination.
Crusade Treasurer Ned Fowler, a local banker and a member of The Church at Chapel Hill in Douglasville, said, “I’ve really felt a lot of unity building in this community. Rick Gage has helped change the spiritual landscape of our community.”
Calling Gage “a man of high integrity,” Fowler said, “Last night’s message was absolutely the best, most anointed evangelical message I have ever heard. I would put that message up against anybody’s.”
Mary Kaplan, who assisted her husband Tom, one of the crusade’s counseling chairmen, said one counselor was grateful to see his own young son being led to the Lord by another counselor. Tom Kaplan is the interim pastor of Cowan Mill Church (SBC) in Winston.
Gage also preached to the pastors and lay leaders attending the daily luncheons, encouraging them to “follow up by getting into the homes” of each person who made a salvation decision. Agreeing with Gage, Dr. John Pennington, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Douglasville, said, “We don’t need to wait around. They need visits from more than one church.”
During these luncheons, thanks were given to Kevin Maples, senior pastor of Dorsett Shoals Baptist Church in Douglasville, for expressing his burden to bring a countywide crusade event to the area two years ago. “Kevin got the flame,” added Fowler. Ned Fowler is also the organizer of the Prayer Center of West Georgia which has a weekly jail ministry.
Maples said, “All I can say is our church invested countless man hours and thousands of dollars, and it was worth it all. We would do it all over again. How often can we see 260 people saved in one week in our county? Praise the Lord.”
“I would like to do six to eight of these crusades a year. We’re ready to go,” Gage told the pastors and lay leaders.
For 22 years, Gage has been leading GO TELL Crusades in smaller towns across America. He and his Georgia-based team also host overseas missions trips to Russia, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica; GO TELL Sundays; and summer camps for children and teens in several states. His student internship program has led to the awarding of full- and half-tuition scholarships to several students at Christian colleges and universities across America.
The former college football coach is a son of evangelist Freddie Gage of Texas, whose other sons Rodney, Paul and Daniel also are involved in Christian ministry.
For more information about Rick Gage and GO TELL Ministries, call 1-866-I-GO-TELL, email info@gotellministries.com or visit www.gotellministries.com
