GALVESTON, Texas (ABP) — Wearing the signature red bandana of the Bloods gang, Marcus jumped from his Mustang convertible, popped open the trunk and pulled out an AK-47. His friends shouted, “Shoot ‘em! Shoot ‘em!”
The potentially deadly face-off had developed after another driver cut in front of Marcus' car, ripping off the front end of the car.
Inching his feet toward the angry man, Johnny Flowers, pastor of Wynnewood Baptist Church in Dallas, began to talk to Marcus.
“You don't want to do this. Don't waste your life like this,” Flowers said.
Slowly, Marcus, “who had been prepared to kill another, wept on my chest like a baby,” Flowers recalled. “He was just a kid….”
It was like a scene from a violent movie, but Flowers said it's often a real-life scenario for him. And this time, a young man's life was changed forever.
“He cried like my daughter, and he ended up then and there making a decision for Christ,” Flowers said.
That experience prepared him for work volunteering at Texas Beach Reach, an event sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas in Galveston, Texas. The reach happened in a beach area popular for students on Spring Break, and crowds of thousands often become rowdy — everybody is “focused on sex, getting drunk and getting high,” Flowers said.
The parties, gang signs, flashy cars and booming sound systems are part of hip-hop culture, which is exactly what Flowers and other volunteers hoped to permeate. Christian volunteers worked on the boardwalk and beach with “guys smoking marijuana and drinking at the same time.” They said when they told party-goers how Jesus loves them, many broke down in tears.
Bertha Vaughns, the Baptist student ministry director of Texas Southern University, led the event, which was designed to evangelize the more than 40,000 young people who converge on Galveston each year.
The event was a partnership between Union and Galveston Baptist Associations, Bethany Baptist Church, First Southwest Baptist Church, Family Unity Baptist Church, First Metropolitan Baptist Church, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, BGCT African-American Ministries, and Texas Baptist Men.
Ira Antoine, a BGCT African-American affinity group strategist, said the event let volunteers “share and show the love of Christ in a very non-confrontational, culturally relevant manner.”
Ministry organizers said they prayed with more than 500 people and led eight people to become Christians.
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