THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS
170
Winning American High-School Youth By WALDEN HOWARD Memphis, Tennessee
The aggressive leadership of James C. Rayburn, Jr. crystallizes the ideals and effectiveness of the Campaign. The beginnings of the work stem from informal' home Bible clubs held in 1939. Asked to take one of these groups, Rayburn traveled 150 miles each week to lead a struggling group of six boys and girls in Gainesville,. Texas. Week followed week with no signs of growth. Then two seniors, the high-school scholastic leader and the leading so cialite, realized the emptiness of their Christian lives and yielded them to the Lord. Johnnie’s experience was typical of others. He came to the club “because they wouldn’t let me' alone,” but be fore many meetings had passed he Stood up abruptly in the club to con fess Christ, as his Saviour. On an other occasion, a girl wandered un intentionally into a Sunday afternoon meeting where students were praying for their unsaved,-friends. She had never attended the club, but midway in the meeting -she broke into sobs and slipped from the room. Next night after the club meeting she exclaimed
The Campaign has but one reason for existence: the belief that more must be done than ever has been done if the gospel is to be presented to the millions of high-school students who are not now hearing it.* Two purposes motivate the Cam paign staff: “to reach the unsaved with the ^gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ by any and every means as God directs, and to teach Christian young people to go on with the Lord.” Almost every.week testimonies are received from youif|: men and women who for the first time have learned what it means to be a Christian, and Campaign leaders are s e e i n g the steady growth of young Christians as they daily search the Scriptures and seek to live lives that -honor the Lord. *This statement does not undervalue the excellent results of many Christian■agencies already at Work among high-school youth; to name just a few : the Miracle Book Club, the Dunamis and Martures Clubs, and the Euo- dia Clubs—the latter being conducted by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and having 53 groups in as many schools in the Los An geles area, as well as in Oregon and Arizona, But the need among high-school youth is so great that it must be admitted that all that is being done is inadequate to reach those who need Christ .—Editor
IGH-SCHOOL students can be the most eager, the most hun gry-hearted, the most respon sive young people in the world. This fact was emphasized in the following newspaper comment: “A religious rally with the en thusiasm and precision of a foot ball game packed an estimated 2,000 .high-school age youngsters into the Baker Hotel’s Peacock Terrace at the Southwest’s first Young Life Campaign mass meet ing. “Arrangements had been made in advance ,with the hotel to pro vide chairs for 1,500. Before the meeting got under way every chair was filled, extras w e r e added, many were standing around the wall, and others for whom there was n»t even standing room had been turned away.” Thus wrote a newspaper editor con cerning a young people’s gathering in Dallas, Texas. What he saw was typical of the effort being made by an aggressive new -missionary move ment, the Young Life Campaign,* to reach high-school youth for Christ.,
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