Pastor David Cripps has a unique perspective on The War like no other pastor I’ve been with; he remembers it during it pilot days when it was called “The Uncivil War.” Years ago, as a high school student at Marquette Manor Baptist Academy in Downers Grove, IL, he was around during some of the very first experiments that Wayne and Jim Van Gelderen conducted in the efforts to reach lost teens with the gospel. In fact, during the summer that the church sent out several teams abroad with the concept, David was sent along as a helper on the team led by John Van Gelderen. God started the whole thing by demonstrating the power of the gospel. That power, thankfully, has not diminished on iota since then!
This past week at Victory Baptist Church in Baytown, TX we saw the hand of the Lord on our event all week long. From the beginning, the church teens were completely “into” The War. They came out to every recruiting time, invited friends in person, via text, and on social media. When the first War night rolled around, the spirit only intensified! Even more exciting was the fact that many of the church teens got unsaved friends to join them. God worked and teens were saved every night.
Darien came out the first night, but didn’t move during the invitation. Alex, the Navy captain, talked to him afterwards, but he was hung up because he thought that there had to be something more to salvation that simple faith in Christ, else it would be hypocritical. Alex explained the gospel to him more thoroughly and the Holy Spirit met the need of his heart; he got saved! Later he told Alex that he didn’t want to be a mediocre Christian, he wanted to learn and live like a Christian was supposed to live.
Allen came out the first and second nights, but didn’t move in either of the invitations. After the second night, John, the Army captain, felt constrained in his heart not to counsel anyone in the counseling room, but felt like God might have someone else for him. He started talking to Allen in the kitchen afterwards and asked him what he thought of the message. His countenance fell and he said, “Honestly, I don’t know what to think about that.” God was working in his heart and he wanted to talk about it, so they went to a counseling room. As John was explaining the gospel, it was clear that Allen was guilty and that he wanted to get saved as soon as possible. In fact, at one point as John was explaining, he got a little impatient because he wanted to get saved right away! He prayed out loud and said, “I don’t really know how to do this, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.” He proceeded to ask Christ to save him. As we questioned him afterwards, both John and I were very impressed with the confidence that he had in Christ.
After the week was over, we had about 50 teens attend The War and 21 of them trusted Christ as their Savior. Many of the teens who were saved were remotely connected to the church through their friends that invited them, so the prospects of teens continuing to attend Victory Baptist Church are very high. In fact, on Sunday morning, four of the young people who were saved Saturday night went forward in the invitation to publicly profess their faith in Christ. Praise the Lord, God is at work!
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