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Around
65,000 youth and young adults flooded the Gateway Arch
Grounds in St. Louis on Sunday to hear the sounds of
Christian rock, hip-hop, and rap artists, as well as
messages delivered by evangelist Franklin Graham.
“This has been a fantas tic day. We’ve seen a lot of kids
give their life to Christ. There’s been a sea out here
of people,” reported Graham as counsellors on the ground
met with the several hundred people who expressed their
decisions for Christ.
After kicking off the inaugural Rock the River Tour last
month with nearly 11,000 young people in Baton Rouge,
Graham and his team from the Billy Graham Evangelistic
Association made their way up the Mississippi River to
their second of four stops to provide youth an
opportunity to respond to the Gospel, be encouraged by
trained peers and then related back to local caring
churches.
The BGEA’s new, high-energy youth outreach was inspired
by the vision that Graham shared last September after
learning that more than two-thirds of those who made
decisions for Christ in the last few years during the
ministry’s large, evangelistic crusades have been youth.
So far, Graham says, Rock the River is “exactly what we
prayed it would be – an exciting evangelistic event that
would attract unchurched young people to hear the Gospel
of Jesus Christ.”
“We just thank God for what He’s done,” Graham reported
Sunday, August 2, 2009.
“We’ve come up the Mississippi River, right here behind
me, fishing – fishing for the souls of America’s youth,”
the evangelist added, “to bring these kids in, kids that
maybe never go to church, kids that have never known
that anyone loves them.
“This is what it’s all about – it’s about taking God’s
love, His Son Jesus Christ, to another generation. Rock
the River. That’s what we’re doing. We’re rocking the
river.”
As the BGEA continues to make its way up the Mississippi
River, with plans to stop by the Quad Cities on Aug. 8
and Minneapolis/St. Paul on Aug. 16, Graham is asking
that people continue to pray for the effort. “[W]e will
be going against the currents of secularism,
postmodernism, and the godless culture in which we
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