“They are fervent in prayer,” Carl Fair – Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Dardanelle – shared about Fellowship Baptist Church of Huntington.
For about three years now, Fellowship Baptist Church of Huntington has worked with First Baptist Church (FBC) of Dardanelle to host a local sports camp.
The kicker: their churches are roughly an hour and a half away from each other.
Fair shared, “A couple in our church used to live in Mansfield, and they told us about how Fellowship Baptist was really good at hosting sports camps. They gave us their training manual and we went to one of their sports camps.” This year for One Day: Serve Local, Fellowship Baptist was planning to serve at FBC Dardanelle. They offered to do an event for them to serve their community.
Fair said, “When we shifted gears because of COVID-19 to just serve locally for One Day, they [Fellowship Baptist] told us they would still love to come do one for us. They actually put the sports camp on. For the most part, we just assisted them. They are very intentional about sharing the Gospel. The results are an indication of their passion. They are fervent about praying ahead of time and advertising well.”
This is a picture of unity. This is a picture of love.
Local churches are not competing against one another, but instead, they are working together for one common goal: to see all people come to know Christ deeper. Between FBC Dardanelle and Fellowship Baptist – two churches that are not even in the same town – we see a picture of biblical unity. These churches eagerly choose to go out of their way to serve the other and serve alongside each other. Why? Because they understand the importance of unity in the Church.
Fair said that this sports camp is so effective and engaging in their community, that they actually did this instead of a traditional Vacation Bible School recently. They saw more salvations than they ever had before.
“The normal way we do the sports camp is over four or five evenings, but for One Day, we only had one day… so we did different games that we had set up on the field. The kids come in and we separate them by age. We put them in different groups and rotate the groups around. Every leader of each game shares a brief testimony and has a small teaching time. They all gather in tents, and someone is designated to share the Gospel with them, giving them a time to respond. There is always a lot of prayer that goes into this. The Lord shows up and does His work,” Fair said.
Prayer and preparation. To Fair, he said these are irreplaceable.
For One Day: Serve Local on Saturday, October 3, 2020, they had one young man give his life to Christ during the sports camp. He was so excited, that he went to find a friend, brought him to the sports camp and said, “I accepted Jesus today and he should too!” His friend spent some time talking to one of the leaders, and he ended up accepting Christ that day as well.
Two young men, impacted by leaders for Christ during a sports camp on One Day: Serve Local. Not only did they learn about Christ, but the first boy seemed to even feel the weight of sin and the Gospel so heavily that he eagerly found a friend that was lost and wanted him to know the freedom that is found in Christ alone.
Prayer and preparation: both are irreplaceable.