Hunter leads tent crusade
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An area-wide, multi-denominational tent crusade is planned to take place there beginning tonight and continue each night through Thursday at 7 p.m.
Evangelist Dr. Harold Hunter, who was a preacher in Warren County at Northside Baptist Church throughout the 1970s but who moved on to speaking engagements on an international level, will be preaching the message of Jesus Christ and unity. Music evangelist Guy Bates will be leading the choir.
Hunter, who presently leads Trinity Crusades for Christ and who previously ministered to a church of 5,000 in Florida, will be the primary speaker for the event.
One goal is to inspire an awareness of God to young people, he said, adding over the past decade, he has spoken to more than 1.5 million teens from across the United States, Canada and Mexico in non-religious settings about teen suicide, drugs, alcohol and premarital sex.
“One of the real concerns I have is that many of our teenagers don’t have a moral code,” he said. “There is no inner core of absolutes anymore. So one of the things I try to do when I come to a city is to deal with what sin is and the devastating effects of it to teenagers who have been influenced by a lot of aspects of the entertainment world that are very deadly.”
Another goal is to break down denominations.
“Let’s not satisfy ourselves with being affiliated with a church and being less than our best,” he added, “because the people of the community at large who do not go to church sometimes get bad signals from people who do go, but don’t live up to the highest attributes of their churches and of God.”
A third goal is to decrease the incidence of racism, he said, wondering out loud, “How can we love God if we don’t love our fellow man?”
Hunter also wants people to see Jesus Christ as the sole mediator between God and man.
“There are people who are unhappy. A lot of people don’t trust the government. They don’t know whether they will have a job next year. Their families are in chaos and they need Jesus Christ, who is the real need of the human heart, in my estimation. We try to share all that when we go to a city.”
Hunter’s son, Pastor Braxton Hunter of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Newtown, has helped to arrange much of the event, but there are a number of area churches involved sponsoring it. Hopes are more than 1,000 people will arrive each night to participate.
The younger Hunter indicated Warren County could use some help in the morality department.
“Warren County right now is in a very sad state,” he said. “Meth is always a problem, and then you’ve got the problem of all these sex offenders here lately and even some female sex offenders and we just want to try to remedy that with the word of God.
“So we’re bringing in this nationally known evangelist, who happens to be my father, and we’re going to have this week of powerful preaching and unity and try to help the community to heal from what’s happened here.”
The elder Hunter said if just one person gets the message and accepts the Lord, he has done his job. He made note of the evangelist responsible for the Rev. Billy Graham’s work in Christianity.
“Years later, before he knew Billy Graham was going to be a great world-wide evangelist, he was asked, ‘Do you ever feel like you’re a failure?’ He mentioned that meeting because so few people came to Christ there. And yet one of them was Billy Graham,” Hunter said.
One never knows what the future holds, but Hunter indicated the possibilities are endless during crusades.
“We’ve seen some dramatic things happen. We’ve seen these meetings grip towns. I don’t make any claims about being a great preacher, but we’ve seen people who were racist go to each other, apologize and ask forgiveness. We have seen politics change when there’s been corruption. People would demand for ethics and uprightness. We’ve seen families brought back together,” he added.
“We can’t change the world, but we can change the corner of the world and that’s what we want to do here, is make a positive effect.”
Sponsoring churches are Cornerstone Baptist Church, Living Word Fellowship, North Hills Church of God of Prophecy, St. Bede’s Episcopal Church, Providence Baptist Church, Sojourner’s Fellowship, Centertown and Short Mountain United Methodist Churches, Iglesia Un Nuevo Amanecer and Smartt First Assembly of God.