When people new to our church experience VBS at Liberty for the first time most are just “blown away”. It’s not unusual to have the adults as fired up as the kids are about it. There are some churches that spend all of VBS “hushing” the kids and trying to keep them quite – uh hummmm…. we don’t do that. We turn up the volume and have a blast with them. Our attendance normally increases every night as kids go back home and tell other kids – “You’ve gotta experience this!!”

How important is this “experience”? Consider these statistics from 2007:

• 2,876,877 children, teens, and adults participated in a Southern Baptist Vacation Bible School.
• Of those participants,  267,771 identified themselves as unchurched – many more are most likely unchurched in practice.
• Of those who identified themselves as unchurched, 37,888 enrolled in Sunday School following VBS. Think about this – 37,888 sounds like a lot of people, but when you consider that each person represents a home with additional siblings, parents, and other relatives living in the home, that number can quickly becomes 1,000,000.
• One of the most amazing statistics is one of every sixteen 1st – 6th graders was enrolled in an SBC VBS in 2007.
• VBS 2007 accounted for 88,097 professions of faith during the week of or immediately following VBS, resulting in 26% of all 2007 SBC baptisms.

Wow!!!

You are doing a good work church. Yesterday I had everyone stand up who was saved as a teen or earlier – easily 80% of the church was standing. That’s how important VBS is.

So, roll up your sleeves ~ put on your cowboy boots ~ drink a 5 Hour Energy ~ and lets tell some kids about Jesus!!

• We had 399 in Sunday School – what’s up with that? Scott’s sole mission is to find the 1 person who did not get counted yesterday and make sure we had 400 in Bible Study. If you came in late and think you didn’t get counted, send him an email to let him know….

• We had 2 teenage boys walk the aisle and present themselves for baptism at the 11:00 service. That is awesome! We had youth everywhere yesterday. Last night’s service the youth were out in full force! Way to go guys!!

• I baptized a 77 yr old man yesterday morning. How cool is that? My wife led him to the Lord a few weeks back and the Living Water SS class had been visiting him and sharing the gospel with him for months! We have almost 20 people that are scheduled to be baptized this Sunday night, but we wanted to baptize him early because of his age and health. Isn’t the grace of God awesome?!

• We held our last SS teachers meeting before Super Sunday. It was a great meeting that we started off with a time of small group prayer. Each leader had to find someone NOT in their class and pray with them in groups of 3 or so. It was a sweet time of fellowship.

• The sermon on Samson yesterday [according to your comments to me & altar call] seemed to have shaken folks up a little – yay!! How easy is it to go through the motions without having a touch of God on your life and no intimate relationship with Christ? Don’t do it!!!

• I hope your prayer this morning was that God would give you a NEW HEART!

• This weekend is going to be awesome. Pray for Bill Stafford and This Hope. Invite someone to come to Revival and Super Sunday. Invite school teachers, fireman, and law enforcement to our special event just for them at 10:00 in the Sanctuary.

• And finally, at the beginning of the 11:00 service we had technical difficulties so I had to DANCE to cover! Yes, I threw down on the stage to start the service! If this preaching gig doesn’t work out then………

I think that’s all….It is study day….

And its not just the numerical growth that is great, but Spiritual growth is taking place as well. Next week I will baptize over 1/2 dozen teenagers and college kids who have been saved recently. I am texted & Facebooked regularly by college and high school kids who ask me Bible questions and Christian living questions. Right now, we have college kids who are fasting from food, media, and television in order to draw closer to the Lord. Every week when I preach it is a huge encouragement to look down at the first 5 or 6 rows in the middle section and see our youth sitting there listening to every word or raising their hands in worship!!

With all of this going on here, I am reminded of something – God often sends revival through youth. One of the greatest revivals the world has ever experienced was the Great Welsh revival of the early 1900′s. Evan Roberts, who was just a young man, went about the countryside preaching a 4 point sermon:

1. Confess all known sin
2. Deal with and get rid of anything ‘doubtful’ thing in your life
3. Be ready to obey the Holy Spirit instantly
4. Confess Christ publicly

Evan was full of the Spirit of God and for 2 years (until he collapsed from exhaustion) he saw hundreds come to Christ. People were changed in so many ways. The crime rate dropped, drunkards were reformed, pubs reported losses in trade. Bad language disappeared and never returned to the lips of many – it was reported that the pit ponies failed to understand their born again colliers who seemed to speak the new language of Zion – without curse and blasphemy – even football and rugby became uninteresting in the light of new joy and direction received by the Converts.

So, pray for your youth at Liberty. Pray for revival at Liberty. If you know someone who has a teenager invite them to church.

One of the greatest things they can do is to get that teenager involved in a youth group that is on fire for Jesus!

Right now – @ Liberty – they are on fire!!