The Sunnydale Church, in conjunction with Sunnydale Adventist Academy (SAA), recently completed a 10-day evangelistic series for SAA students. As a result of these meetings, 13 students expressed interest in further Bible studies and 15 expressed interest in baptism or rebaptism.
Funded by the Sunnydale Church, students were invited to participate in It Is Written’s “Revelation Today” evangelistic series. The church provided the study guides, the meeting place and other materials.
Each night, a SAA student presented on that night’s topic to their peers. In addition to presenting, some students acted as table leaders who helped facilitate discussion and guide other students through the study guide.
“This evangelistic series really helped me because it was an opportunity to spread what I learned [at Sunnydale] about God,” said Jinelle Gallen, evangelistic series presenter and junior SAA student.
Leaders all received an Andrew’s University Study Bible. The church had 30 Bibles remaining which were distributed to attendees who came to the meetings seven or more nights. Each night, students were also entered into a drawing for a gift card to various eating establishments.
The event was not mandatory, but, according to Alfalah, up to 60 students attended at one time. Because of when the event was held, many seniors were unable to attend as it conflicted with their schedules.
“We are at a disadvantage because the series was held at the end of the year. We don’t have a lot of time left to work with them on campus,” Alfalah said. “The plus side is that most of the attendees were juniors and sophomores, [so they will be returning next year].”
According to Victoria Tobing, SAA assistant chaplain, SAA will be contacting churches in areas of students who expressed interest in baptism or Bible studies.
“We are going to try our hardest to get [the interested students] connected to someone who can study with them over the summer,” Tobing said.
When the series completed, Tobing and other leaders were looking at the left-over materials and realized they had 12 unused study packs. They didn’t know what to do with the study packs and prayed for guidance.
The next day, Tobing received a call from Elisabeth Cowan, a leader of the NC4Y group in Kansas City. Cowan was reaching out for information about the series and said she was interested in holding a similar series in Kansas City. Tobing knew that this was an answer to prayer.
“We’re going to be able to pass those extra Bible study sets, and the sermon notes on to [the NC4Y group] so that they can get started and hopefully do something similar with the young people there,” Tobing said.
