Small town America in many ways is a unique mission field–one that is “white unto harvest” as our week in the North Woods of Wisconsin demonstrated to us all. This past week we were with Seth Hamilton, pastor of Lakeland Baptist Church in Crandon, WI. My wife and I attended college with Seth and his wife Jill. It was wonderful to catch up on old times and minister alongside each other again.
Crandon is a small town of only 1,920 people. Everyone knows everyone and word spreads quickly. After one day of recruiting, we had thoroughly saturated the town and everyone knew about The War. Sure enough, the first night we had a great crowd for Crandon! Army dominated the competitions of the night, winning literally everything. Army won the night 14,000 to 5,200. During the preaching, the crowd was quite responsive, both positively and negatively. At the hand raising, half the crowd raised their hand that they were concerned about where they would spend eternity. However, at the time of invitation, peer pressure kept many back. Church members were floored when, in spite of the obstacles, 12 teens came back and trusted Christ in the counseling room!
The second night, Army dominated again, winning every competition of the entire night, increasing their lead to 32,300 to 12,800 There were several challenges during the night, but God worked again and one young man who had made several decisions before finally understood the importance of trusting Christ alone.
The last day, we were concerned that Navy wouldn’t show up, seeing that they had so thoroughly lost the two previous nights. Praise the Lord, Navy showed up with reinforcements and we had the best spirited competition of the whole week. We used a brand new modified version of Human Fooseball, which was a huge success! Competition was actually very even the whole night. Though Navy made a valiant effort, Army’s lead was too great to overcome. The final score of the week was 35,300 for Navy and 54,000 for Army. During the preaching, God brought a holy hush to the group. God worked in the invitation and several responded. One of the youth leaders had been praying for a particular young lady to trust Christ for months. During the invitation, this young lady responded. The youth leader got to lead her to Christ herself in the counseling room! 5 teens trusted Christ the final night.
The week yielded a total attendance of 62 teens with a high night of 48. A total of 18 teens trusted Christ during the week. Praise God for the plenteous harvest and the power of the gospel!
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