I’ve really been blown away by the numbers of people who are raising their hand at the close of our services, surrendering their lives to Christ. Just before Easter this year I sensed that a powerful season of harvest was coming to our church and I knew the way that we were handling the salvation call needed to be tweaked. I came up with the idea of providing packets that could be given out to people who indicated they wanted to make a decision to follow Christ, either for the first-time or as an act of rededication. We actually set up stations throughout our facility where people could pick up these packets and connect with someone if they wanted more info or prayer. On Easter Sunday I preached a message called, “A Fresh Start with God” and we decided to use this phrase as the key phrase. We developed a logo and used the logo to indicate the stations where people could pick up the packets. I also worked on the way I did altar calls. Christine Caine is one of the best there is at giving an altar call for salvation. In fact, she’s got a great teaching called “Altar Calls”, and so I listened to her teaching and put some real effort into giving better salvation calls every single time we have service. Now, at every service, I take at least 5 minutes and give people a chance to surrender their lives to Christ either for the first time, or in rededication. I ask people to raise hands as an act of faith, letting God, and me, know they need to turn their lives over to Jesus. We decided not to call people forward, but instead, after raising their hands we all pray a corporate prayer of repentance out loud, then we celebrate big time. The church goes crazy every Sunday and at times I can actually see the change come over the people who’ve raised their hands. It’s awesome. Then we direct them to pick up a packet. Let me tell you, the numbers of people who are giving their lives to Christ is amazing. Since Easter, we’ve seen 763, and a total of 897 since the beginning of the year! That’s an amazing number for our church. God has honored our efforts. This is a new and awesome season for our church. We’ve prayed and fasted for this season for a long time.

A few years back I met Bill Bright and took a tour of the Campus Crusade for Christ headquarters. On that campus, there was a ticker that was actually counting all of the people that were being saved through the Jesus Film. It was cool. So I thought it would be cool to post a ticker right here on my blog, counting the numbers of people surrendering their lives to Christ in our services. I’m believing for 1000 by the end of the year. Come on, believe with me!