Gadsden team uses acts of strength to open doors to witnessing

Concrete walls are coming down. A couple of small explosions rock the house. Steel bars are bent. 
   
No, it is not a tornado. It is the Truth Force Strength Team’s not-so-subtle way of carrying out Jesus’ call to be fishers of men.  
   
“What we do is we use feats of strength as a bait to get people in, so we can preach the message of salvation,” team member Chris Winningham said.
   
In between breaking down walls of concrete blocks, blowing up hot water bottles, crushing soda cans with their bare hands and bending steel rods over their heads, the six-man team of former athletes shares their testimony and closes with an evangelical message of salvation and altar call.
   
The concept of a power team was introduced to Truth Force’s founder Zac Clay in 1990, when he was a senior in high school. He attended a performance by John Jacobs and his Dallas, Texas-based The Power Team in his hometown of Gadsden. Since 1976, Jacobs and the original strength team have operated according to the philosophy that people who would not attend a normal church service would come to see men do feats of strength.
   
“That really got my attention, and I began to really have a dream that the Lord would one day use me in such a way,” Clay said of his audience experience with a strength team.
   
In 1994, his dream became reality when he was approached by a youth minister in Gadsden about joining a strength-faith ministry. The group traveled around the country for about six years, but when the minister took another position and left Gadsden, the team folded. Clay didn’t perform for several years, but God placed it on his heart to continue this ministry and provided a way to do it.
   
He called Winningham, Bubba McConnell, Buck Tucker, Robert Ransaw and Ben Elrod. They all lived in the Gadsden area, and Clay knew they were not only big and strong but they were also men of God. 
   
They started training, practicing and performing about two years ago. All of the team members are former football players, and Tucker is also an ex-Marine.  
   
Winningham does not sing and he admits he is not the best speaker, but he has always enjoyed athletics. 
   
“God has opened my eyes to the fact that I can minister for Him and evangelize,” Winningham said. “Where for a while, I just thought that mainly I could just go to church and kind of serve through that. God has planted this in me that I can actually go out into the community and use this ministry as a testament to Him.”
   
As if ripping up phone books, snapping baseball bats in two and lifting massive amounts of weight is not challenging enough, the team members have full-time jobs that sometimes make it difficult to find time to meet and prepare for shows.
   
“It holds me and the other members accountable both physically and spiritually,” Clay said.  
   
They not only have to stay in the gym to keep their bodies strong but most importantly, they have to stay in the Word and in church to train spiritually. 
   
“If we’re going to stand up in front of students at school assemblies and churches, then we have to be clean ourselves,” he said. 
   
After a show, they wake up sore and feeling beat-up, but it is the decisions made for Christ that keep them going.  
   
“At the end of the show, when the hands go up and the people come forward to the altar that just makes it all worth while,” Winningham said.
   
At a show in 2004 before an audience of more than 100 youth living in state custody at a juvenile correctional facility, more than 30 people made decisions in one day.
   
Even though the team will perform anywhere, Winningham said when they have the opportunity, they enjoy doing shows at schools.
   
“There’s always a benefit to do a school show because a lot of times, the kids will come that night to church to see another performance, and they’ll bring their parents,” he said. “That’s just another opportunity for us to witness.”
    Earlier this year, the 450 sixth, seventh and eighth-graders at General Forrest Middle School in Gadsden got treated to a performance by the team.
   
Cora, the school secretary, described it as a dynamic performance and said all the children were uplifted. 
   
“I wish we had some kind of statistics about how many kids went to church on Sunday who didn’t go last Sunday,” she said.
   
The team does not charge a fee for performances and any money received, such as a love offering, helps finance the ministry.
   
For more information about the Truth Force Strength Team, visit the group’s Web site at www.thetruthforce.org or call Clay at 256-547-9739.