Alabama Baptists share gospel as counselors at Graham crusade

When Billy Graham’s altar call comes, the world listens. So it’s not surprising that when the call came for some Alabama Baptists to go share their faith at a recent Graham crusade in New York, they were all ears.
   
A team of 48 — mostly youth — from First Baptist Church, Wetumpka, and a team of five from the University of Montevallo were among those from the state who traveled to work as counselors during the Greater New York Billy Graham Crusade June 24–26. 
   
For the First, Wetumpka, group, the opportunity was unexpected but welcomed.
   
“It was presented to the church, and the church caught the vision,” said Pastor James Troglen.
   
The nearly 1,200 members of the church raised $33,000 to send the group to New York. Ranging in age from two 13-year-old seventh graders to a couple of college freshmen, the teens in the group were joined by Hankins and other adults on the trip. 
    
“Seeing all the lost people who don’t even know who Jesus is was an eye-opening experience,” said Sally Taunton, a ninth-grade student who went on the trip with her parents.
   
The group worked as counselors during the crusade’s evening sessions June 24 and 25 and spent time during the day evangelizing and witnessing to passersby in Central Park, Times Square and Brooklyn, N.Y.
   
“God let me lead seven people to either go to church more or get to know God better or they accepted Christ,” Taunton said.
   
Thad Hankins, youth minister for First, Wetumpka, counseled a man from New Jersey and another from Ohio. He said, “Isn’t it neat that a guy from Alabama could lead a guy from New Jersey and a guy from Ohio to the Lord in New York City of all places?”
   
Travis Moore, Baptist Campus Ministries minister for the University of Montevallo, said he and the four students who went with him had similar reactions. “Once you have gotten to experience that personally and see God use the students like that, supernaturally, I believe the Lord doesn’t let you get away from it,” Moore said.
   
He and the students saw a number of people come to Christ also, both while counseling at the crusade and while riding the subway, walking up and down Times Square and walking through Central Park.
God called thousands to make decisions during Graham’s crusade, leading some 8,300 total to salvation. The crusade drew more than 230,000 people to hear the 86-year-old Graham speak. Suffering from Parkinson’s disease, fluid buildup on the brain and prostate cancer, he shuffles with a walker, the lasting effects of a hip replacement and broken pelvis. Although frail, Graham refused to call this crusade his last.
   
“This is not the end,” he said. He continued, saying that he was asked just the other day whether this is the last crusade. “I said, ‘It probably is — in New York.’ But I also said, ‘I never say never.’” (Grace Thornton contributed)