Hill challenges attendees to take stand on social issues

The air was thick with anticipation. Traffic backed up, filling all the adjacent parking lots over an hour before the meeting was scheduled to start. Ushers scrambled to find seats for the overflow crowd as the 150-voice choir practiced songs that would bring everyone in the building to their feet — repeatedly.
   
Churches from Morgan, Limestone and Muscle Shoals Baptist associations helped make Decatur’s North Alabama Bible Conference a success. The Jan. 9–12 interracial, interdenominational event was spearheaded by Phil Waldrep Ministries and attracted an estimated 7,000 people during the four-day preaching conference. Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Decatur also played a major part in organizing the conference.
   
Several churches cancelled their Sunday night and Wednesday night services so members could attend the conference, resulting in more than 3,000 people attending the Sunday night session.
   
The four-day meeting, held at Decatur Baptist Church (not a Southern Baptist church), featured preaching from Junior Hill, Hartselle evangelist; Ergun Canor, a Turkish Muslim convert to Christianity who is a professor at Liberty Baptist University in Lynchburg, Va.; actor Kirk Cameron, Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans; and James Merritt, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Music was provided by Charles Billingsley and choirs from the Decatur area. Cameron kicked off the conference with his testimony of salvation and spiritual growth (see story, this page). 
   
Perhaps the highlight of the week was the sermon by Junior Hill on Tuesday. The well-known evangelist was greeted with an extended standing ovation by the hometown crowd. He challenged the congregation to be “salt that preserves” instead of “sugar that pleases.”
   
“As I look at the cultural and religious scene today, it seems that many churches have trimmed their sails and determined to be an inoffensive, noncondemning, nonjudgmental congregation that will never make man feel bad, guilty or insecure,” Hill said, offering an alternative. 
   
The other option is “salt that preserves — faithful men and women of God who believe that the preaching of the gospel has power,” he said. “May God raise up a generation of men who will say homosexuality is an abomination … it’s wrong to kill a little unborn child … it’s wrong to live together outside of marriage.” 
   
Following the conference, Waldrep said, “I think there was a spirit of revival. It did a lot in people’s lives both corporately and individually. I also think it went a long way in drawing some churches together.”