Online Devotional - Originally published 3/12/05 as
an Upward Basketball Devotional.
What if No One Showed Up?
Alan Chandler (webmaster coolspring.org)
The following is a true story from the Answers in Genesis
Website, found at:
www.answersingenesis.org
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What if there was only one person listening to an
Upward Basketball Half-time devotional? Would it be worth it to go
through with the devotional? Read below to find out:
Speaking to an almost empty lecture hall!
by Dr. Monty White, CEO, AiG-UK
15 July 2003
The university lecture theatre was designed to seat almost 100 students,
but here I was talking about the origin of life to a mere three—yes,
three—students! Let me tell you about it.
A graduate student and friend wanted to share his belief in God as the
Creator and Savior with his colleagues at the university. He had noticed
that during a certain lunchtime period a particular lecture theatre was
not in use. In trepidation, he approached the Head of the Department and
asked if he could use this lecture theatre in order to tell students and
staff in the faculty about Jesus Christ and the Bible.
The Head of Department (himself a regular churchgoer) said that he could
have it, and so the student asked me if I would be willing to give a talk
about the origin of life. I agreed.
The lecture was advertised using posters and personal invites. When I
turned up a few minutes before the start of the lecture, there was just
the organizer, together with one other student—a friend of his who had
helped him with the publicity. Just before I was about to start, one other
student arrived—a stranger to all three of us.
I spoke for about 40 minutes about the impossibility of chemical evolution
and the impossibility of the genetic code originating by itself from
matter, and of how reasonable it was to believe that God was the Creator
of the genetic code, the author of life, and so on. At the end of the
talk, the student got up quickly and walked out without speaking or
responding to us. Frankly, we wondered if the whole exercise had been
worthwhile.
Several years later that student wrote to me. He told me that during the
talk I had literally hammered nails into the coffin of his unbelief in
God—and into the coffin of his belief in evolution. He explained to me
that at that time he was an atheist, and that all he lived for was the
study of evolution. He had gone to university to study this subject—he was
majoring in biology.
The student told me that by the end of the lecture, he felt suicidal. He
felt that he no longer had anything to believe in. Over the next few
months, this student sought help from counselors—but all to no avail.
Eventually, he decided to try to find some Christians to see if they could
help him. They did, and shortly after that he became a Christian.
After this student graduated, he worked full-time in the Lord’s work and
eventually became a missionary and served the Lord in the Middle
East—taking the gospel to Muslims!
Whenever I’m asked if I would be willing to speak at a meeting when there
would be only a few people attending, I always say ‘Yes,’ as I often think
there might be someone in the audience who will have their belief in
evolution shattered, respond to the message of the gospel, and eventually
become a fellow-worker for the Lord.
Fortunately, for the Upward Basketball
2005 Season, attendance was great:
Over 900 Children Participated in 8 games (1 cancelled due to weather).
Three Church locations were used with a usual total of 44 games per day,
for a total of 352 games this year.
Usually about 23 half-time devotionals were given per game day, for a
total of 185 this year.
There were 88 Basketball teams with ages from Kindergarten to 7th grade.
There were 14 Cheerleading Squads.
There were virtually uncountable numbers of volunteer hours put in to make
this a great season.
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