Well, we have almost completed the first leg of our 2008 Disciple Now Tour. Our tour began a few weeks ago when I led a small group of junior guys at Wedgwood BC's DNow in Fort Worth. The following weekend we travelled through over 8 hours of ice to finally reach the final destination of the buzzing metropolis of Dumas, AR (just Google it, but you may have to squint to actually see the dot on the map). This past weekend I was at Parkhills BC in San Antonio, TX. Next week our team will be at Allen Heights BC in Allen, TX.

God has been great! Two weeks ago when we were in the cotton fields of Dumas, AR, God truly worked. When we arrived in Dumas and met some of the students, I thought that they were the most stuck-up group of teens that I had ever met! I was really shocked. Well, either my perception was totally wrong or God really did a miraculous work because when we left there, that youth ministry was completely changed! Now I've seen some miraculous changes among individual lives, but I don't think I've ever seen an entire youth ministry change like that! It was awesome. The church decided to use our FOCUS bible study which has a session that teaches students how to share their testimony. The group of 8th grade guys decided to take this new found knowledge of sharing their testimony and sharing the Gospel to a new level. They decided to go into the Fred's department store in town and share the Gospel. Now, earlier that day the employees of Fred's had asked our group to leave because they were simply doing an act of kindness by pushing all of the carts from the parking lot back into the store. They experienced rejection, but they didn't give up. Later that day they returned, but this time equipped with the Gospel! The proceeded to share the Gospel with a woman in the store. Tears nearly immediately began to pour down her face as the news of what Jesus did for her and us became more real. Later that night, that woman attended the Gathering worship service. She came up to me afterwards and told me this story. She said that earlier that morning she was reading in a devotional book that she had at her house. She hasn't read the devotional book very much, in fact, it had a good amount of dust on it. The section that she chose to read that morning was in Daniel 3. Well, the sermon that I preached that night was also Daniel 3. She approached me afterward knowing that none of the events of that day (the reading of the devotional, the 8th grade guys sharing the Gospel with her, or even attending a youth worship service) were just random circumstances. She knew that God had intended. 3 students accepted Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior of their lives that night! Praise God!

This past weekend in San Antonio, I had the awesome opporutnity to speak at a church's DNow which they call Revolution Weekend. Now, this church is in an interim period. In fact, the interim youth minister doesn't have a college degree, isn't married, nor does he have an extensive background in youth work. I'm sure the church thought that this event would be a numerical and maybe even a spiritual failure. 160 students signed up and a total of 221 people were involved in the event. This was the second highest number in the churches history. Even beyond those attendance statistics, 6 people came to know Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior of their lives on Saturday night.  Isn't our God good?