From the Desk of Jeff King

Hungry hearts

God touched a generation 10 years ago from a sleepy bedroom community north of Seattle. Youth services at Marysville First Assembly of God regularly drew 600 to 800 teens in one of the most unchurched regions of America. The overflow crowd would spill into the aisles, foyer and adjoining fellowship hall. Many of the visitors were adults, also hungry for a touch from God.

In June 1997, the youth church and its dynamic leader, Benny Perez, received front-page exposure in the Seattle Times newspaper. Days later, two Seattle TV stations dispatched news crews to the same Wednesday service (see YouTube clips below). In a region impacted by grunge music and New Age religion, the buzz was Jesus Christ. "It's powerful, incredible," said Tom Connelly, a visiting youth pastor from New Jersey. "It's evident God has the heart of those teenagers."

As a church member and newspaper journalist, I was impacted by the meetings as well. I contacted Charisma and Christianity Today magazines, among others, and was hired to write several articles. The secular and Christian media both were asking: Why are teens in the cold, dark Northwest turning to God en masse? Perez, who started with 20 teens in 1992, attributed the growth to impassioned prayer and fasting. He and his youth leaders took turns fasting year round. Dates were reserved on a calendar a month in advance.

Although God revealed to me later that elements of the charismatic movement, which this youth church embraced, violated Scripture, I believe many of these teens had a genuine relationship with Christ. They seemed desperately, passionately in love with Messiah, and zealous in sharing the good news among their peers, families and even strangers.

Here are re-edited excerpts from my November 1997 Charisma article:

• The signs of surrender are everywhere. Drug needles, hidden in a cigarette pack, are tossed on to the stage from a throng of teenagers flooding the altar. Perez paces with a microphone and calls on teens to "get right with God." Soon the carpet is littered with marijuana and secular music CDs.

• Former gang members and drug addicts worship alongside honor students and homecoming queens. . . . Not all the worship is thunderous. During one service the hard-driving band led teens in a hushed, sweet chorus of "Jesus loves me, this I know."

• Matt Lybarger, a drummer in the worship band, was moving music equipment when an intoxicated man confronted him in the church parking lot. Lybarger took two punches, then invited the man into the empty sanctuary. The teen moved to the piano on stage and began serenading his tormentor with hymns. The man sat in a pew and wept. Lybarger then took the man out for dinner and shared the Gospel.

• Jammie Bigbey, 21, received Christ on a rare night when no salvation call was made during the service. "I didn't want to die. I thought this might be my last chance," says Bigbey. "On the inside I asked Jesus to take my life and all this pain. I didn't want to go to hell."

• Colleen Hicks, mother of two boys, awoke one night to find two strangers standing on her front lawn with flashlights. Jon Frederickson, 20, and his father were searching in the dark for Jon's two missing front teeth, which were knocked out by a friend in a drunken rage hours earlier. The yard was splattered with blood. Jon, who was nearly beaten to death, needed five hours of surgery to repair a broken jaw. Hicks befriended the family and invited Jon to a Marysville youth service, where Hicks' 9-year-old son had been healed of a back injury a year earlier. Impacted by the meetings, Jon gave his heart to Christ. "I was partying, doing cocaine and heroin," he says. "I was on the wrong path. Marysville put me on the fast track to God. I know I'm still a target for the devil – he says, 'Get that guy before he makes any more good decisions.' " Hicks fills her minivan with teens each week to attend Wednesday services, an hour drive from her Federal Way home. Seats in the van are reserved a week in advance.

I found that old magazine buried in my closet. I thumbed through the pages, recalling how Christ had touched so many young lives. Many of those commitments still are bearing fruit. Lybarger pastors a church in Everett, Wash., and Bigbey is training to be a Navy chaplain. Frederickson married a girl he met in a Christian bookstore. He remains committed to Christ, according to Hicks.

Click here to read the January 1997 Christianity Today article.

Addendum – Scene from a memorable service in March 1997: A Seattle gang member accepts Christ, and another inner-city teen hands over crack cocaine to Perez. With the worship band jamming on stage, several Siberian teens approach the altar for prayer, though none speak English. Also attending were 40 Canadians and a pastor from Albania, who became stranded in Seattle when civil war broke out in the Balkan nation. "That night was glorious," Perez reflected later. "God touched every culture in one place."

Posted by Jeff King at June 8, 2007 02:40 PM