This week at Somerville Baptist Church was a week I had been looking forward to for quite a while. I had preached a service at the church when I was traveling with a music ensemble in college. I remember from that service that the church had a spiritual life in it that I had not seen in many churches. Pastor Shane Lewis is a wonderfully generous man with a heart for God and God’s work. So when the Lord opened the opportunity to bring The War to Somerville, I was greatly anticipating what God was going to do.
Our week began with some outstanding recruiting opportunities. We were able to invite teens from two lunch rooms, one breakfast room, one dismissal time, and one gym opportunity where almost the whole student body literally had nothing to do but listen to us recruit them for The War. Over two days of recruiting, we had 525 names and numbers of teens who had expressed interest in The War. We were excited at the potential of the week!
When the evening competitions finally rolled around, we were elated to see the turnout. Even though we were up against several community events, we still had a total of 129 teens attend over the three nights. Furthermore, God moved in hearts every night. Two young men came the first night who, from all outward appearances, did not seem to be “plugged in” to the night. During the preaching, they seemed to be cutting up and conversing with each other and generally not paying attention. However, at the invitation, it became clear that I only observed part of what God was doing. At the opportunity to respond to the message, both young men raised their hands to indicate that they needed to be saved. At the invitation to go back and talk to a counselor, both came back and trusted Christ! Another young man whom God was working on had attended our hosting church almost all of his life. The final night, he responded to the invitation and entered the counseling room. Afterward, I questioned him about his decision, suspecting that he was simply “getting saved again.” He told me that he had been depending on praying a prayer and feeling sorry for his sin to get to heaven but that during the message he realized that he had to depend on Christ alone! Praise God for the convicting work of the Holy Spirit! Over the three nights, 14 teens trusted Christ. Hallelujah!
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