Day Five at North Mecklenburg

This report details the last day of the week-long "God is Going Back to School" campaign at North Mecklenburg High. Brenda Spurlock brings the final day and week of outreach into perspective. This outreach to students has proven to be effective in sharing Christ yet like Jesus' ministry also deemed more controversial by many.

Day Five at North Mecklenburg
Brenda Spurlock
March 11, 2005

Many of the folks had other things to do this week, but they came to North Mecklenburg instead. Some took time off work in order to testify to the 2,800 students. God blessed these saints with Holy Spirit conviction and they were faithful to Go.

This has not been a particularly easy campaign. At this juncture, it doesn't even appear to have been a very successful effort, at least not in the way the world judges such things - huge numbers of students saved or marvelous confessions made. Though we heard from a ton more people than is normal for any campaign we've ever had, still email message after message revealed hostility and contempt. The same kind of messages, with an occasional bright spot, were coming in by phone to Kristene and Becky at the OSA office.

I suppose Jesus looked a little less than successful too, on the last day of His earthly “campaign,” hanging from that cross. But, while He was there, He did something that turned out to be the pattern for what happened at N. Meck Friday night. Ever the Good Shepherd, He reached out one final time and, with His dying breath, welcomed a very lost sheep, the thief hanging beside him, into His kingdom. The thief came under conviction after hearing Christ ask the Lord to forgive His persecutors. He confessed his sins and was saved by grace, (Luke 23:34-43).

Jesus' parable in Luke 15:1-7 reveals that He expects His church to leave the ninety-nine who are safely in the fold to search for the one little sheep who is lost. That search certainly becomes more do-able when we're willing to step outside the churchhouse and go to where the lost sheep is!

Scott Heldreth and “Fit” from Fire School of Ministry witnessed to one young lady at the baseball game after school Friday evening, who was struggling with drugs. “I'm try ing so hard to be good,” she told them, “and I just can't. There are so many things pulling at me.“Fit and Scott gave her Scripture after Scripture to encourage her including Romans 7:19-20 “For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me."

As Flip pointed out, Jesus did not have one word of condemnation for those who admit their sin. It was the ones who wouldn't confess their sin that He called “vipers.”