First published through The Paris News on April 30, 2018. The article can be found on their website at http://theparisnews.com/opinion/article_c2625502-4c8e-11e8-9621-1730b9efd560.html

As Christians are meant to do, I am spreading the good news of multiple teenagers who made a decision, during the weekend’s FUSE Youth Conference, to follow Jesus — some even boldly threw their hands up and said they wanted a relationship with him.

Two separate times stood out to me during one of his sermons, when Michael Satterfield, aka Chocolate Thunder, asked a volunteer to come up to the stage to demonstrate certain points.

The first demonstration, he asked a guy to come up, and they locked arms back to back. Chocolate Thunder was talking about accountability partners keeping one another’s backs.

While they locked arms, Chocolate Thunder practically man-handled this guy — imagine a rag doll being pulled around. As he was jerking the guy around, Chocolate Thunder said we can watch what we do, but we still need someone there who has our backs. In other words, we need a friend who will be there for us, to help us through troubling times.

A few minutes later, he asked another guy to come up and help with yet another demonstration.

Chocolate Thunder had the guy try to pull a handkerchief from his hand, saying “God, just take this burden from me.” He was talking about how we should just let go of what’s bothering us. We shouldn’t worry about what we’re going through, because God will see us through it.

During the alter call, those two guys Chocolate Thunder had used to help with demonstrations boldly stood up and said they wanted a relationship with God.

I asked him if God put it in him to call on those two.

“I don’t know his name, but I know God has written his name in the lamb’s book of life,” Chocolate Thunder said. “God having those two called out, that was intentional. God set the atmosphere, and he also grabbed a hold of the hearts of young women — girls who feel they have no image and announced to them they cannot live the lie and deceit the world has showed to us. They are God’s chosen vessels.”

With a room filled with students worshiping God is an awe moment. Listening to the music and hearing the worship hits you. Some might even say it’ll bring a tear to your eye. Seeing these students kneel at the alter with one another and pray together shows how powerful love really is (1 Peter 4:8).

Benji Hall, Westside Baptist Church’s youth minister, said functions like this do good because often times you don’t get the awe feeling in church.

“To see the kids this weekend praying with one another and worshiping, just working things out together and looking to God, gives me, as a youth minister, the extra charge that I don’t get at church a lot of times,” Benji said.

Maxey Baptist Church’s Youth Leader Cameron Woodruff agreed with Benji 100 percent.

“But, what really set it off for me is a bit different, because you all [other youth leaders/pastors] have been in it a little longer than me,” Cameron said. “When we started and they said, ‘youth leaders come up to the front.’ I was like, ‘wait a minute, that’s me!’”

Cameron was enthralled in the idea of being there for the students who either wanted a relationship with God or needed to pray about what’s going on in their lives.

All-in-all, the conference was a success to say the least. With about 120 student-aged teenagers at the conference during its first year of inception and about six months worth of planning, the FUSE Conference could possibly turn into the annual Northeast Texas FUSE Conference. From what I understand, the youth leaders who put FUSE together are expecting to start discussing next year’s FUSE real soon.

Also, sitting in during a meeting with the youth leaders, I didn’t hear one disagree with the idea of continuing this conference yearly and possibly more often. Who knows, maybe we’ll look up 10 years from now and start saying, “I can’t wait until the end of April for this year’s 10th annual FUSE Conference.”