One of the things that Jerry Johnston had done as a young preacher starting out at age 14 was to start a Bible club in his school in Kansas City, Kansas. He began winning his classmates to Christ and learned to preach as he discipled them. We had heard him tell about it at camp that week and so we were determined to start where he had started. School started on Monday, August 23, 1982 but it wasn’t until Thursday, August 26, 1982 that we were able to shift our classes around and start our Bible club. That Thursday we gathered some of our friends that would come and met in the library at lunch. I didn’t know what to do once we had them all seated around the table but I had heard somewhere that as a new believer you should start reading the Bible in the book of John so I figured the best place to start with these unbelievers was the book of John so I opened up my new leather bound Bible to John 1 and I started reading. I read John 1, 2, and 3 and when I got to the part in John 3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless he is born again he cannot see the kingdom of heaven, I noticed that my brother was talking to our friend Ted Chavez and Ted had tears coming down his face. It wasn’t too long before my brother and Ted bowed their heads and Ted prayed to receive Christ as Savior. It was unbelievable! We left that library like we were walking on clouds. It felt like the book of Acts all over again. We praised and thanked the Lord for His Spirit moving.
When we got home we told our mom all about it and she made a wonderful suggestion. She said that we should start a notebook and write in it the names of the souls that God gave us each day. So we went in my dad’s office there in our home and got a brand new red spiral notebook. Here is the entry from the first day…
The Holy Spirit Bible Study
Started August 26, 1982
Ted Chavez accepted the Lord 8-26-82
That night we praised the Lord and prayed and rejoiced. The next day, Friday, August 27, 1982 we came to school with a boldness that God was going to turn our school upside down for Him. We started talking to everyone about Jesus and to our amazement some of them were so ready to hear it and so ready to place their faith in Jesus. Others were aggressive and had many questions that I couldn’t answer and I knew I would have to do much more studying. That Sunday we came to our youth group so excited to tell our youth pastor about what God was doing at Manzano High. He was shocked and thrilled and allowed us to give our testimony. After the service two girls, Cheri and Debbie, walked up and said they went to Manzano and they wanted to be a part of our club. We were elated to have some fellow soldiers from our church to help us.
The entry in our red spiral notebook the next week looked like this…
Charter Members: Matthew Bullen, Mark Bullen, Mike Meyers, Mark Malles, Glen Jorden, John Owens, Ted Chavez, Cheri Pendley, Debbie Greenwood.
Friday 8-27-82 saved
David Watkins (won him to Christ during Spanish class)
Paul Langley
Monday 8-30-82 saved
Micheal Granjean
Wednesday 9-1-82 saved
Jennifer Fox
Friday 9-2-82 saved
Jerry Hicks
Jennifer Taylor
Tuesday 9-7-82 saved
Morris Sanchez
We were off and running! I would write the names of the kids who came to Christ in the fly leaves of my Bible and then transfer them to the notebook each night. But in a very short time I ran out of space in my Bible. Over the next 2 years we would write the names of over 300 teens in that red notebook as having professed faith in Christ! We were living the book of Acts!
I started reading every Christian book I could get my hands on. I told my parents, grandparents, and friends that all I wanted for birthdays and Christmas were Christian books and they complied. We were witnessing every day and running into Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Satanists, Agnostics, Atheists, you name it. I remember one time I was witnessing to a Satanist and he started foaming at the mouth and cursing and blaspheming and tried to bite me before his friends tackled him and dragged him away. In a short period of time we became known throughout the school as the Jesus Freaks and we started getting hauled into the principals office on a regular basis and threatened for witnessing. Part of the fun was running back to the rest of the club and telling everyone about the miracle that just happened to us. One day my brother came running up very excited and told us that he had just won the leader of the Cholos (our old rival gang) to the Lord and that He had prayed with Mark right in front of his whole gang. Our Bible club was kicked out of room after room on campus but God always provided and that club met every day for the next 3 years. Teens were being saved, lives were being changed, we were discipling our flock and they were devouring the Word and witnessing and winning souls too. One day we got the idea to stand up in the hallway between classes as everyone was at their lockers and preach a 5 minute gospel sermon. That got us hauled into the office. We would bring gospel tracks to school and pass them out. One day we were hauled into the office and as we were sitting outside the principals office waiting to be seen we gave out our last tract to a teen waiting there as well. When we were called in they asked us if we were handing out tracts and we said yes. They asked to see one and we truthfully told them we didn’t have any more 🙂
Our school had atrium hallways where the lockers were that were open to the sky. We got the idea to come in at night over the roof and drop down into the hallways and put a gospel tract through the vent in the door in every locker in the school. Remember in my previous post I said stark raving mad passion…? Yeah. We sent off to different tract societies and had them send us the 4,000 tracts that it would require then one night we dressed all in black and delivered our package. The next morning it was pandemonium as 4,000 students walked through the halls reading a gospel tract and then, something we hadn’t anticipated, promptly threw them on the floor. We were hauled into the office for that one! Many young people came to Christ through those tracts and we were walking on clouds. We pulled our cat burglar stunt with the tracts several more nights over the next three years. One of the neatest evangelistic ideas we had that year was to get everyone in our Bible club a white T-shirt with big red letters on the front that read “DO YOU KNOW?” We would strategically wear them all on the same day and when anyone asked us, “do you know what?” we would say, “do you know if you died today if you would go to heaven or hell?” Many, many young people came to Christ as a result of those simple T-shirts. In just a couple of months the news of our Bible club began to spread all over the city, state, and eventually the country and we began to get invitations to tell our story at churches and youth rallies. But that is for another post.
There is no way to tell all of the miracles that happened everyday for those 3 years of Bible club. Many of those teens are walking with the Lord and in ministry around the country today. To God be the glory! But that was just the beginning… Aflame For God 4 – 17-Year-Old Evangelist
We were off and running! I would write the names of the kids who came to Christ in the fly leaves of my Bible and then transfer them to the notebook each night. But in a very short time I ran out of space in my Bible. Over the next 2 years we would write the names of over 300 teens in that red notebook as having professed faith in Christ! We were living the book of Acts!