Manitowoc Baptist Church is a church plant started by Ron and Helen O’Bryon in Manitowoc, WI. We took on the week knowing that we did not have a large base of teenagers with which to start, but we were anticipating God reaching virgin soil with the power of the gospel. Indeed, that is exactly what God did.
Though God was working, our wee was not without opposition by the prince of the power of the air. The forecast showed that our first entire recruiting day should have been entirely ruined by rain, yet not a drop fell during any of our recruiting times–an answer to prayer! When I checked the forecast again for the first rally night, the entire day was supposed to be filled with thunderstorms. We got on our knees and prayed that God would not let any storms or rain dissuade anyone from coming. Sure enough, the storms completely vanished and we had beautiful weather for the competitions!
The first night at the invitation, God moved and nine teens trusted Christ. The second night, the teens were inviting like mad and our crowd increased drastically. God moved again in the service and seven trusted Christ. The final night, there was a young man who had not responded all week, though he raised his hand at each invitation. Each night previous, a team captain had talked with him and plead for him to get saved. The final night, God worked in his heart through a message on Hell and he not only raised his hand, but responded in the invitation and trusted Christ! Five others trusted Christ in that invitation as well. All in all, 22 teens were saved in The War for the week.
The Spring 2012 tour for The War was a wonderful tour. We preached the gospel to over 750 teens over our ten weeks on the road. 180 of them trusted Jesus as their Savior. Our faith has been stirred that the power of the gospel is still sufficient to reach the teens of America today.
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