"Send the Rain" Tops Best Stories of Year

DOUGLAS — Let us begin 2009 with a brief look back at 2008. The year was filled with important news stories, several of which could be considered Story of the Year.

South Georgia College welcomed a new president. An armed robbery epidemic has plagued the community all year. Related to that, community leaders gathered at the Weir Center during the summer and discussed what many believed to be an increasing crime rate — a meeting that resulted in little, if any, meaningful change.

Additionally, the November election sparked historic local turnout, Vince Dooley visited Douglas in October, Fleetwood announced the closing of local facilities, a budget crisis caused panic within the school system and, under the auspices of a new head football coach, the Coffee High Trojans football team advanced to the quarterfinals of the state playoffs and the SGC Lady Tigers softball team won the state championship and moved on to the national tournament in Plant City, Fla.

As big as those stories are, they aren't quite big enough.

This year's Story of the Year is a little bit different, and maybe one that too many people simply missed. For four nights beginning in late September, over 60 local churches and pastors came together for a community-wide series of revival meetings at Central Square Complex called Send the Rain, which was hosted by Life Action Ministries.

Sure, Coffee County has hosted a number of so-called "community revivals" over the years. But none have been a truly community effort.

As unfortunate as it is, the Christian community in Coffee County has been divided. The most obvious division is, of course, racial. While there are probably more multi-racial congregations in Douglas and Coffee County than ever before, those remain in the minority. Far greater than the racial division in the Christian community is the denominational differences that exist. For much too long, churches and pastors have argued over the differences among the various denominations instead of focusing on what each body of believers has in common. The result has been a history of distrust and, at times, outright animosity among the different congregations. In Matthew 12:25, Jesus said, "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand." Those are words that the local Christian community has done a poor job of heeding over the years.

Until the last 18 months.

The idea for Send the Rain was hatched over 18 months ago after several pastors realized they felt burdened for the same outcome — a community-wide revival to reach Coffee County for Christ. The vision was too big for one church. That's when local pastors realized that they needed to put personal, denominational and racial differences aside and come together to spark a revival.

Over 18 months of planning went into the meetings. After countless meetings, hundreds of hours in prayer and an extensive local public relations campaign, the day of the revival finally arrived.

The first night of the revival — Sunday, Sept. 28 — over 60 churches moved their evening night services to Central Square. An estimated 1,900 people attended that first meeting, which was led by Rev. Byron Paulus, one of the nation's foremost revivalists.

That  first meeting focused on the 10 absolutes about revival, as taken from Hosea 10:12:

• Revival begins with God’s people.
• Revival begins with me.
• Right living precedes revival.
• Right relationships precede revival.
• Right obedience precedes revival.
• The time for revival is now.
• Revival must be sought.
• The Lord does the sending.
• Revival is the presence of God.
• The fruit of revival is righteousness.

Throughout the four-day revival, around 6,700 people from all racial, ethnic and denominational backgrounds attended. “It was kinda like just a grand family reunion there with all our local brothers and sisters in Christ,” said First Baptist Church pastor Rev. Shep Johnson.

The Life Action team isn't through with Douglas, either. Later this month, two Life Action teams are returning to Douglas for revival meetings at Eastside Baptist Church and First Baptist Church. The meetings will overlap each other on a few dates, and will last until early February.

The significance of Send the Rain cannot be underestimated. Each of the problems facing this community — crime, the drug epidemic, racial distrust, etc. — are all inherently spiritual in nature. The most direct pathway to true positive change comes from when a person's heart is transformed. Nothing does that more completely than a commitment to Christ.

The best way — in fact, it may be the only way — Coffee County's problems will truly be solved is for people of faith to come together and be obedient to God's plan. That cannot happen when congregations argue over petty denominational and racial differences. Send the Rain was a giant step in the right direction, one that could go a long way in making an enormous difference in the future of Coffee County.

For that reason, the Send the Rain revival meetings are the Story of the Year for 2008.

This article was taken from the Douglas News.

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