Small town church sees 86 salvations in four-day meeting

NIXON?The week of April 13, God poured out his treasure chest on the First Baptist Church of Nixon, a town of 2,186 people about 45 miles east of San Antonio.

During a revival led by Stan Coffey, pastor of The Church at Quail Creek in Amarillo, 84 people registered professions of faith between April 13 and April 16.

“Small churches serve a big God; it is time for our small Texas churches to be revived,” said Kenny Rawls, pastor of FBC Nixon.

But revival did not happen spontaneously, Rawls noted.

“In the last two-and-a-half years First Baptist Church has seen 286 people come to salvation,” Rawls said. “Of those 286 decisions we have had 94 baptisms” in a church that averages 125-150 people on Sunday mornings.

Rawls said the move of God was preceded by months of preparation. In January, Rawls started to make prayer a focus of revival.

“The church began to move in a direction of prayer,” Rawls said.

The church members gathered for three months in home Bible studies. The church members wrote down names of friends and acquaintances they knew who needed Christ and then as a group prayed for them, Rawls explained. Seven days before the revival was to begin the church began praying round the clock.

“We wrote up a schedule and people were in the church praying for the revival 24 hours a day for seven days,” Rawls said. “We are still seeing people coming to Christ because of these prayer meetings.”

“We love the church and the people and we show them the love of Jesus,” Rawls said in response to a question about the success of the revival meeting. “My philosophy of ministry is, ‘shoe leather and concrete will win people to the Lord.’

“We started to pray that Jesus would destroy the ‘I can’t help it attitude.'”

Rawls said many small churches adopt the attitude that they cannot do big things for God because they are so small.

“But if a church is doing the Lord’s work, it is a mega-church,” Rawls said.

Rawls also said that Vacation Bible School has opened doors for FBC Nixon, and he suggested that every church make an effort to use VBS as an evangelistic tool.

“If churches are not doing VBS they are really hurting themselves,” Rawls said. “We average 250 children the week we do VBS and it opens doors.”

Rawls said youth minister Josh Graff was instrumental in helping draw more than 100 students to the services each night.

Another blessing has been that the church members were transformed preparing for the revival, Rawls said.

“One of my deacons said to me, ‘One salvation would be great, but we want 100.’ I really want to encourage the small churches in Texas to realize that they can do big things.”

Also, “Small churches need to realize that the SBTC offers great support,” Rawls said. “The SBTC advised and helped FBC Nixon with our revival” through SBTC Evangelism Director Don Cass.

“I just hope that our story will inspire the small churches of Texas to realize that they can do big things. When the church comes alive this is what happens.”