Hundreds of North Carolina students have been praying for their friends and inviting them to start a relationship with Christ through BeDoTell Momentum Tours.

“I didn’t know that it would take off like it is,” said organizer Merrie Johnson, the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina’s student ministries strategist.

The three-part tours are the newest element of BeDoTell, a youth ministry of N.C. Baptists that is short for be a Christian, do discipleship and tell others.

During the first two sessions of the Momentum Tour, churches partner together in a particular region to help their students know how to pray for their classmates and share the gospel without fear. The following month, those students invite their classmates to a final rally that’s filled with fun games and a gospel presentation.

The launch

“It was great to not just have a flash in the pan, just a one-time event,” said Eddy Bunton, associate pastor of student ministry and missions at Burkemont Baptist Church in Morganton. Morganton was the first of three regions to host a Momentum Tour last fall. The tour also held events in Mars Hill and Brunswick County.

“Because this [tour] was focused on discipleship, students were learning to pray for their friends, they were learning how to share [the gospel] with their friends, and then it culminated with them bringing those friends they had been praying and sharing with — and we got to see God work,” Bunton said. “We saw quite a few salvations, students followed in baptism and even some were called to ministry.”

Bunton distinctly remembers seeing one sixth grader look “absolutely broken” while praying for his friends who didn’t know Jesus during the first session. By the final rally, that student said, “I know God has called me to ministry.”

Throughout the Momentum Tour, other students realized while they had committed their lives to God, they had never taken a stand for Him. “Many of them had not called on the Lord through prayer, that He would move before them,” Johnson said. “It’s Him that’s going to do the saving, we’ve just got to be responsible to do the sharing.”

Another student who attended the final rally in Morganton was Bunton’s daughter. She invited a friend to the event, who decided to give his life to God.

“[It] was really exciting,” said Greg Klapp, associate pastor of children and family at Burkemont Baptist Church. During the counseling time, he watched numerous students who responded were led to Christ by their friends. Youth leaders stood nearby to help as needed and provide follow-up information.

“Other youth pastors’ students were saying, ‘I guess I underestimated the power of praying for someone, like praying for a gospel conversation,’” Klapp said.

In Brunswick County, a teenager who attended the first two sessions prayed that God would use her to reach others for Christ. One of her friends who didn’t know Jesus came to the rally and asked her during the invitation, “Hey, I don’t know Jesus. Would you share with me how I can make this decision?”

Stunned, the Christian girl’s eyes widened. She quickly snapped out of her fear and responded, “Yes, because I learned how.”

She used her “3 Circles” booklet to lead her friend to Christ. The “3 Circles” is a tool that uses three circles that represent God’s design, humanity’s brokenness and Jesus’ redemption to illustrate the gospel.

Going forward

Although the Momentum Tour is moving to six different locations in 2023, God hasn’t stopped working among the students who attended events last fall.

“I think [the Momentum Tour] opened the students’ eyes to see how many other Christians they went to school with and just haven’t realized,” Bunton said. “I think that has emboldened them.”

A seventh grader felt compelled to restart a Christian club at her school that had been shut down due to COVID. She told the administration about her desire and found a teacher to sponsor the club. Since then, the club has had between 150-300 students every first Friday of the month.

High schoolers started Girls for God and Guys for God groups that meet for early morning Bible study once a week.

Occasionally, students plan certain days to wear their Momentum T-shirts to be reminded of their mission as they see each other in the halls.

A dozen students have accepted the challenge to be campus missionaries, committed to seeing their school as a gospel opportunity.

Bunton and Klapp are wanting that momentum to continue in 2023. Their calendar is marked with multiple outreach events and mission trips involving associational churches, some carrying the name “Momentum” in connection with last fall’s tour.

“For us, the end result is to have disciples that are making disciples,” Bunton said. He hopes they will remember this culture “whether they’re in a middle school classroom or part of a cubicle in an office when they’re an adult.”

‘The revival generation’

In January, the tour kicked off in Columbus County, and other events were held in Rutherfordton and Murphy in the spring. More events are planned for Monroe and Winston-Salem later this year.

“We’ve been blessed to know we just started it in the fall and God’s really taken hold of these students,” Johnson said. “They want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

“I do believe this is the revival generation. They’re so hungry to see God work in their lives – and obviously, the numbers that are showing up, they really want to know the things of the Lord. They want to be grounded in truth.”

According to the Barna Group, 77% of American teens are somewhat curious about Jesus and want to learn about Him. There’s evidence of God moving in the lives of Generation Z, generally classified as those born in the mid-to-late 1990s to the early 2010s.

Earlier this year, an ongoing chapel service at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, gained worldwide attention and was described as an “outpouring” of the Spirit. Other Christian colleges and universities across the country
also reported experiencing similar moves of God on
their campuses.

“In this time that we’re leading in, I do believe revival is possible,” Johnson said. “If our state could catch on, wouldn’t that just be amazing? Even if it’s just one region at a time, that they begin to wake up, that the power of the Spirit would just move across North Carolina with students leading the way. Historically, great revival started with students.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Lizzy Haseltine is a freelance writer based in Charlotte. This article originally appeared in the May 2023 edition of the Biblical Recorder magazine.)