Thousands flock to four-night North Alabama Bible Conference; Wednesday service clogs traffic

Learning from last year’s inaugural conference that it pays to get there early, people in the Morgan County area began filling the auditorium of Decatur Baptist Church more than an hour early for the opening night of the North Alabama Bible Conference, which was held Jan. 22–25. 
   
The conference, sponsored by Phil Waldrep Ministries and Morgan Baptist Association, featured such well-known speakers as David Jeremiah, Ergun Caner, Jerry Vines and Jimmy Jackson, pastor of Whitesburg Baptist Church, Huntsville, in Madison Baptist Association. 
   
Singers Larnelle Harris, Charles Billingsley and a combined choir representing many of the churches in Morgan Association provided music.
   
On the first night, many churches moved their Sunday-evening service to the conference with almost 2,500 people in attendance. 
   
Waldrep, noting the atmosphere of excitement, said, “Some of you thought you were coming to a Baptist meeting, and you’re thinking, ‘Oh, my Lord, I’ve ended up in a Church of God!’ 
   
“It is refreshing to see people excited about going to church and about hearing the Word of God preached. We don’t see that very often,” he added.
   
Jeremiah, pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church, El Cajon, Calif., said he was surprised and touched by the news that Jan. 25 traffic was at a standstill on one of the main arteries of Decatur leading to the church.
   
“In California, if you have a service like this in the middle of the week, you will not have traffic jams,” he said.
   
That night, more than 3,800 people, including some from as far away as Birmingham and Nashville, packed into the auditorium and overflow venue to hear Jeremiah speak on Romans 8:28.
   
He asked how to explain the unexplainable like the hurricane and the tsunami.
   
“It (Romans 8:28) doesn’t always mean that everything will be OK,” Jeremiah said.
   
He told of a Christmas party where the participants were given puzzles to solve, but the box tops with the pictures had been switched. 
   
“Ever feel like somebody switched the box top on your life?” Jeremiah asked. 
   
Referring to his own bout with cancer, which has been in remission for almost seven years, he told those in attendance, “When God allowed cancer in my life, I didn’t know what He was up to, but He was going to get the glory. He has not chosen to give us all the details of the journey.”
   
Because of the complexity of life, Jeremiah said, we cannot always see the meaning of our own role, but we can be assured that God is up to something good.
   
Caner, dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Va., encouraged those in attendance Jan. 22 not to shy away from confrontation. “Where better to shine a light than in the midst of darkness?” he asked.
   
A Turkish Muslim convert who faced banishment from his home by his irate father, Caner has been described in the national media as the “intellectual pit bull of the evangelical world.”
   
He is often called on to refute the idea that there are many ways to heaven. “I have been asked, ‘Are you saying that a good Buddhist will go to hell?’ My answer is that Buddha is in hell.”
   
Caner was led to Christ by a persistent fellow student when they were in high school. 
   
“I didn’t switch religions. I got saved,” he said. “I went from worshiping a dead idol to worshiping the one true, living and sovereign God.”
   
Carl Blackwood, a member of Westmeade Baptist Church, Decatur, in Morgan Association, said, “I thought the conference was great. It is a unique opportunity to hear that kind of talent. It was really a blessing. I missed one night and I hate I missed it.”
   
Diane Walters, a member of West Hartselle Baptist Church, Hartselle, in Morgan Association, had a succinct reaction to the conference. “Wow,” she said. “That’s all I can say. Wow.”