By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer
HAMMOND – It was 37 years in the making but on April 3-5, the Northshore Baptist Association and Southeastern Louisiana University Baptist Collegiate Ministry are prepared for a harvest of souls.
“We believe God will move in a mighty way and we will see students get saved and lives changed,” said Randy Smith, pastor of Crossbrand Cowboy Church in Loranger. “We believe in God’s power to work and that churches will become involved in this outreach to the community. That is God’s commission – to preach the Gospel and make disciples and see people delivered.”
Set for the University Center at SLU, the Fields of Faith revival will feature challenging messages by Walt Barnes, associate pastor of student and discipleship ministries at New Palestine Baptist Church in Picayune, Miss., and praise and worship bands from the community as well as the school’s Baptist Collegiate Ministry.
The revival is one of 10 Harvest events planned in 2017, according to Wayne Jenkins, evangelism and church growth director for Louisiana Baptists. Harvest officially launched Louisiana Baptists’ campaign to “pray for every home and share Christ with every person” in Louisiana.
Smith’s dream for Fields of Faith can be traced 37 years ago, when he was a student at SLU. At the time, he wanted to see a revival take place on campus, but for some reason that idea never materialized.
Then, in August 2015, Northshore Baptist Association Director of Missions Lonnie Wascom and Les Fogleman – then the pastor of Wadesboro Baptist Church in Ponchatoula but now retired – were taking a stroll across the campus when God revealed to them at Strawberry Stadium a vision to hold an evangelistic event there. Unaware of Smith’s desire years ago, Wascom soon received a text message from the pastor stating his burden for college students.
“God gave me a vision many years ago when I was a student at Southeastern of hundreds of college kids on their knees getting saved,” Smith said. “Through my vision and Lonnie’s vision, we stumbled across what we both felt God wanting to happen on campus. And we are praying He will bring about a true revival.”
Smith and other leaders from the area have worked for nearly a year to prepare for the revival. They are distributing 10,000 cards about the event throughout the community. The revival also will be advertised at the SLU campus and through social media, radio and newspaper outlets.
The cooperative effort will include a diversity of approaches such as multi-church crusades, door-to-door outreach, one-on-one evangelism, and single-church revivals which leverage compassion ministries to share about the love of Christ.
Last year, nearly 600 high school and college students attended a similar event on campus. There, 10 people made a decision to follow Christ. Smith believes many more can make a decision at the April revival.
