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THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORYBY DARRIN J. RODGERS As a boy, Lowell Lundstrom (1939-2012) received a book about Jesus, which inspired him to “one day” share Christ with others. But instead, he grew enamored with popular culture — at age 13, Lowell joined a Dixieland jazz band, and by age 14 he started his own rock and roll band. Lowell seemingly had everything a worldly teenager could desire, and then he met Connie Brown. Raised in an Assemblies of God church, Connie had fallen away from the Lord and had become a nightclub entertainer. Connie started playing guitar in Lowell’s band, the Rhythm-airs. The band won contests, played on radio and television, and got gigs at dances

and nightclubs. But after Lowell narrowly avoided death in a car crash, he began to cry out to God. One Sunday night, Lowell and Connie went to a service at the Assembly of God in Sisseton, South Dakota. There, Lowell gave his heart to the Lord. The Lundstroms became prominent AG evangelists. An estimated one million people decided to follow Christ as Savior in the Lundstrom crusades, which spanned five decades. Read Lowell Lundstrom’s story, “God, Leave Me Alone!” on pages 6-7 of the May 5, 1963, issue of the Evangel online at s2.ag.org/may51963.

STUDENTS AWAKEN IN WEST VIRGINIA

REACHING AN UNTAPPED MISSION FIELDPAGE 3

MINISTRY VIEWS SPECIAL NEEDS KIDS AS CHAMPIONS PAGE 5 • ONCE-DWINDLING CHURCH NOW BIGGEST IN CITY PAGE 5 • FROM

VIRTUAL TO ETERNAL LIFE PAGE 7 • THIS WEEK IN AG HISTORY PAGE 8

“BUS KID” DOES GOODPAGE 4

HOPE ALONG THE CANCER JOURNEYPAGE 6

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There are more than 1.2 billion video gamers worldwide. Matt Souza recognizes that most of them don’t know Jesus. The Thursday before Easter, Souza, 24, a missionary from the AG Southern New England Ministry Network, planted the online GodSquad Church as the first church for gamers. With the slogan “From virtual life to eternal life,” GodSquad is a Christian presence in a community fraught with darkness. Under the gaming name PastorSouZy, he has led 163 gamers to make salvation decisions for Christ. Souza says kids and adults are drawn to gaming for the same reasons.“When you’re 12 years old, you can jump into the virtual world, take on all the bad guys, and save the world,” says Souza. The ministry is via Twitch.tv, a social video platform and community for gamers. Eighteen months ago, Souza created his own live Twitch.tv channel where viewers could watch him play Halo and type questions to him via chat, which Souza answers verbally. Within six months, Souza learned to preach while playing an excellent game. He began to recruit others to minister to players of other games. Now Souza, as a full-time professional broadcaster/streamer, leads a team of full-time and part-time pastors and volunteers who share Christ while engaging with players watching their Twitch.tv channels. For each 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time Thursday service, the aim is to plug participants into a local church via the AG directory. All sermons tie into games and Scripture. Souza’s recent series, centered on the game Destiny, included messages on finding, exploring, and fulfilling one’s destiny. Every message ends with a presentation of the gospel and virtual altar call.

Pentecostals are closely involved in a sudden spiritual awakening across southern West Virginia that has produced hundreds of conversions, healings, and baptisms in the Holy Spirit. Billy Carrico of Bethel Temple Assembly in Nolan says the spiritual atmosphere in his region is so ripe, doors are opening naturally. “We walk into a restaurant and people are talking about God,” says Carrico, whose church is located five miles north of Williamson. The Williamson Field House has hosted a number of nightly meetings that have drawn upwards of 2,000 people in a county with only 27,000 residents. “People who aren’t necessarily going to church are talking about it,” says Carrico, who has baptized several recent converts at Bethel Temple. “Every church is being affected.” Among the miracles he has observed in recent weeks is a person with poor vision whose eyesight improved after prayer and a woman

who had been unable to bear children who is now pregnant. Carrico says youth pastors have been gathering before revival meetings to plan ways to disciple the flock of converts. Katie Endicott, the Prayer Club sponsor at Mingo Central High School, says the move originated with impromptu preaching by Logan High student Skyler Miller at his school in late March. Then, on April 10, Pentecostal evangelist Matt Hartley preached at Regional Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) in Delbarton, prompting an invitation to speak to Mingo Central’s Prayer Club. Of the 400 students who attended, 150 responded to Hartley’s invitation to receive Christ as Savior, Endicott says. She estimates more than 2,000 people have accepted Jesus as their Savior since late March. And, although Miller — who gave God the glory for his healing from leukemia — helped light the spark, the

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FROM VIRTUAL LIFE TO ETERNAL LIFEBY DEANN ALFORD

STUDENTS AWAKEN IN WEST VIRGINIABY KEN WALKER

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When Kevin Haseltine first stepped into the pulpit at Access Church in 2000, he encountered a congregation on the verge of shutting down. Located in North Branch, Minnesota, a city of just over 10,000, the church hadn’t had a full-time pastor in over a year. The congregation had dwindled to only a dozen attendees, and the district had contemplated closing the church’s doors until Haseltine accepted the lead pastor role. In his first few months, Haseltine and the congregants began strategizing ways to engage the community. Haseltine joined the local chamber of commerce and the Rotary club, and the church began organizing outreaches within the city. Within a year, the congregation had grown to 100 regular attendees. Today, the church has 500 attendees on a regular basis and has opened a satellite campus in nearby Isanti. “We’re the largest church in our community, but there’s still thousands of people in the community who do not know God,” Haseltine says. Shaheen Eydgahi, who pastors the Isanti campus, says the church became more intentional in reaching the increasing number of non-Christians walking through its doors.

As a youngster growing up in Huron, South Dakota, David seemed to have a typical kid’s life. But then his world was turned upside down. His mom suffered severe depression and had to be hospitalized, and would never return to the family. David’s siblings were sent to live with aunts and uncles while he remained with his father. David’s father wasn’t interested in taking him to church. But having already connected with the Huron Assembly of God, the bus started picking David up on Sunday mornings. “It wasn’t until years later that I realized I was a ‘bus kid,’” David says. For all practical purposes, however, David was now from a single-parent home with little encouraging Christian influence. But Pastor Howard Cummings, who also drove the church bus, invested in 12-year-old David. “I’ll never forget when they made me an official junior member of the bus team,” David says, his voice still echoing with excitement at the decades-old memory. David says

that small act marks when ministry to others was planted into his heart. David would attend North Central Bible College (now North Central University), in Minneapolis. There, he met his future wife, Mary. They would graduate, get married, and go into ministry. “God spoke to me. He told me His best choice for me was for us to work side-by-side in children’s ministry,” David says. In 1999, after serving nine years as highly successful children’s pastors, David and Mary Boyd were appointed as the Children’s Ministries director and Boys and Girls Missionary Crusade (now Challenge) coordinator, respectively, at the AG national office in Springfield, Missouri. Several years later, David became the full-time BGMC director. The couple has followed God’s leading to see nearly $100 million raised through BGMC for missionaries. Not bad, for a bus kid.

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“BUS KID” DOES GOODBY DAN VAN VEEN

A ministry at Rockford First AG in Illinois is turning children with special needs into champions. Rockford First lead pastors Jeremy and Jen DeWeerdt launched Champions Club four years ago after the birth of their son, Paxton, who has Down syndrome. Inspired to minister to children and families impacted by special needs, the DeWeerdts approached the congregation with the idea of establishing the ministry. Within a few weeks, $100,000 had been raised to add a special wing to the children’s ministry area. Every Sunday, approximately 20 children ages 4 to 12 rotate through specialized rooms during service times. The physical therapy room encourages physical activity through the use of a trampoline, tunnels, and reactive games using voice and touch. The sensory room helps calm the children as they use their senses to complete activities. The most important room is the spiritual therapy room, according to Chris Merz, director of operations for Rockford First Kids. “They need to hear that God has a plan for their life and that He loves them and will never leave them,” Merz says. In the educational room, children can play interactive games and activities.

ONCE-DWINDLING CHURCH NOW BIGGEST IN CITYBY IAN RICHARDSON

MINISTRY VIEWS SPECIAL NEEDS KIDS AS CHAMPIONSBY SHANNON M. NASS

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Although Manhattan, Kansas, is located in the center of the Bible belt, church planters Troy and Lacey Hartman found an untapped mission field there — 65 percent of the people are not connected to any faith community — and launched Rock Hills Church (AG). Troy’s life is a testimony to the power of forgiveness and God’s grace. On New Year’s Eve in 2000, Troy’s drunk driving resulted in the death of a friend, Matt Jones. Troy was charged with involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to five years’ probation. Three days after the wreck, Matt’s mother, Mary, called Troy. She said, “Troy, I love you and I forgive you. If

you give your life to God, He will use it for good.” Mary’s words impacted Troy. He made a decision to follow Christ and pursued ministerial credentials with the Assemblies of God. Three years after giving his life to Christ, Troy was helping plant a church. While serving as student ministries pastor, he met and married Lacey. In 2014, the Hartmans felt God directing them to plant a church in Manhattan. Rock Hills Church launched on Sept. 13, 2015. Although the church is only seven months old, attendance averages 373 on Sundays, and 132 people have come to Christ as savior.

credit for this wave belongs to God, she says. Endicott says this awakening is larger than any one person, school, church, or denomination, and reflects decades of prayer and sowing seed. “When Miller started preaching in the hallways, it inspired students to rise up and be bold in their faith,” Endicott says. “We had never seen that many souls come to the Lord in such a quick time,” she says of the 150 who responded to Hartley’s invitation. “We knew there was something unique going on.” Social media has helped spread the word in rapid fashion, with students announcing preaching plans at their schools on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Many are sharing praise

reports and answers to prayer. Among the many meetings that sprang up after Hartley’s talk at Mingo Central was a rally at the school’s football stadium in mid-April. The meeting ran for nearly four hours, concluding with a baptismal service in a portable tank. Not only are people who lack hope finding it through this revival, attendees of Bethel Temple’s youth group are excited to see the kind of activity that confirms their faith. “It lets them know that Jesus is Lord and He is who He says He is,” Carrico says. “We’re moving into a time when He’s going to pour out His Spirit on all people. God’s coming to show His power.”

REACHING AN UNTAPPED MISSION FIELDBY AMBER WEIGAND-BUCKLEY

When oncology nurse Maxine Pink learned her friend Gloria Harrington’s daughter had cancer, Pink wanted to make sure Harrington knew the right questions to ask doctors about the disease, treatment, and medications. Harrington had mentored Pink at Christian Life Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Pink made sure she equipped Harrington to interact with physicians who would provide treatment for Harrington’s daughter, Anita O’Brien. O’Brien survived two bouts of aggressive cancer in a three-year period. Afterwards, Harrington and Pink started an ongoing cancer recovery ministry at the church in conjunction with Our Journey of Hope (OJOH), a biblically based program sponsored by Cancer Treatment Centers of America. The OJOH group at Christian Life Center meets weekly for encouragement, prayer, and Scripture reading. Since the group started a year and a half ago, two dozen of the

2,500 attendees at the church have let their diagnoses be known. Pink and Harrington have in turn trained 10 others in the church through an eight-week small group study program. “Cancer can cause people to be paralyzed,” says Harrington, who is the church receptionist. “They stop going places and doing things. They just stop living.” Sometimes the stigma can be worse for Christians. “People are still ashamed of cancer,” Harrington says. “They don’t want people to know. This keeps them from coming to the one place that will help them through the journey.” But Harrington and Pink say those who view cancer via a faith grid have a better survival rate. “We want people to know God has not forgotten them,” Harrington says. “Most survivors will say if God had not been with them, they wouldn’t have been able to get through it.”

HOPE ALONG THE CANCER JOURNEYBY JOHN W. KENNEDY

Pink (left) and Harrington