As thousands of spring breakers crowded the streets of coastal Florida, college students from Kentucky — and across the country — used their time away from campus to share the good news of Jesus.
Beach Reach has been sharing the good news of Jesus with spring breakers since the mid-1990s.
RELATED: Check out more stories on Beach Reach here.
More than 1,500 “Beach Reachers” participated in the outreach, including 100 students and Baptist Campus Ministry staff from several Kentucky universities.
310 professions of faith
The number of people reached by the ministry is staggering. Nearly 19,000 spring breakers rode the shuttles provided by Beach Reach. More than 1,600 plates of pancakes were served — leading to nearly 11,000 gospel conversations and 310 professions of faith.
Overcoming the fear of sharing the gospel with complete strangers was an ongoing theme said Brian Hinton, the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s regional campus minister for the Louisville region. He noted how God stirred the hearts of his students from the University of Louisville.
“Talking to strangers really leveled up their anxiety,” Hinton said. “And the fact they were willing to push through that with the excitement was huge.”
Students from other Kentucky campuses shared similar experiences, reporting hundreds of gospel conversations and half a dozen professions of faith.
How it works
Students at Beach Reach are split into three teams. Street teams evangelize spring breakers on the beach, as well as in bars and restaurants.
Van teams give often-intoxicated college students late-night rides back to their hotels. While students are in the van, Beach Reachers on the “hot seat” have gospel conversations. Along with the shuttle rides, the ministry provides pancakes for hungry students.
The prayer team lifts the others up to the Lord over the course of an evening.
Jake Hancock, the KBC’s regional campus minister for the Richmond region, said that he saw God give courage to his students during the week. Rather than running from fearful situations, his students braved dangerous territory for the sake of evangelism.
“Usually, the street team is the scariest place to be since there can be violence present, intoxicated groups and police making arrests,” Hancock said.
Pushing through the fear
“In years past, that was the hardest place to convince my teams to serve. However, this year, my students were begging me, ‘Jake! Send me back out on the streets! I need to go back. God is moving and I don’t want to miss it!’”
Hancock said that the free rides provided a direct path to gospel conversations.
“It’s surprisingly easy to share the gospel inside a scenario like this because often a spring breaker will ask, ‘Why are you guys giving out free rides during spring break?’ From there, students are trained to share that God’s love for them is the reason for service.”
Pushing through the fear of evangelism paid big dividends for many of the students at Beach Reach.
Jacob Harris, a sophomore at the University of Louisville, said that college students were often resistant to having faith conversations. But he said getting through the barrier of awkwardness led to some great dialogue.
Harris said the students asked him a lot of questions during their exchange, but “God was just … giving me all the answers … it felt like batting practice. (They) kept pitching them and God kept hitting them through me and it was just really good.”
He said the experience left him deeply moved.
“After that I just had to go and …weep in a corner because it was such a good conversation,” he said.
Another student from Eastern Kentucky University, who asked to remain anonymous, said the experience of Beach Reach revealed how God can work even when it’s unexpected.
“Even if you don’t see progress or see fruit, He’s still going to do great things and it’s important to remember that,” she said.
Hinton agreed that even when conversations did not lead to conversions, Beach Reachers saw God’s hand powerfully at work.
“So many times we’re not able to get to the gospel when we’re speaking to people, but if we just put a little rock in their shoe or a little nugget that doesn’t sit well, we’ll see what the Lord can do with that.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Brian Fritz and originally published by Kentucky Today.
