c. 1998 Religion News Service
PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. _ They bend steel bars, break concrete blocks and perform other spectacular stunts to demonstrate their strength. But they insist the most important feat of all is to spread the love of Jesus.
Entertaining people with eye-popping muscle-flexing is just the bait to get people into churches and into a personal relationship with Jesus, according to John Jacobs, founder of the internationally televised and nationally touring Power Team.
“I do whatever I can do to reach people for Jesus,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs discovered while he was a college student that demonstrations of raw power get people’s attention, which is one of the first requirements of successful evangelism.
Power Team started 20 years ago when Jacobs, then a student at Oral Roberts University, went to lead Bible study at a prison. After a small turnout, the avid weightlifter decided to make a return visit and show off his physical talents: He could break a pair of steel handcuffs and inflate a hot-water bottle with his breath until it exploded.
The prisoners went wild over the stunts, and everyone who attended dedicated his life to Jesus, Jacobs said. Jacobs told his roommate, also a strongman, about how his stunts helped amplify his appeal for accepting the Christian faith. The roommate showed Jacobs how he could tear a telephone book in half and went along on the next prison crusade.
“There are now 18 guys who do power feats,” Jacobs said. The ministry, based in Dallas, has a staff of 40.
“We’re on TV in more than 100 countries every week,” Jacobs added. “We’ll be in more than a thousand schools. We will do 130 crusades this year. More than 100,000 people have come forward at our crusades.”
Jacobs and the Power Team led a five-day crusade earlier this month at First Baptist Church of Pleasant Grove, Ala. During the day they did anti-drug, self-esteem assemblies for area elementary, junior high and high schools. For five nights, people packed into the church to watch the muscled men perform feats of strength and to hear their Christian messages.
More than 1,700 people attended the last night of the crusade. For the week, there were more than 500 decisions for Jesus, including 200 first-time professions of faith, said Keith McBroom, First Baptist’s minister of music.
“This is for unchurched people,” McBroom said. “They’re drawn to it. It’s so different from what people expect of the church. They expect us to have great music, and they expect us to have great preaching.”
Instead of singing and preaching, the nightly Power Team crusade meetings featured breaking and bending.
While physical power may not be a trait every Christian has, every Christian has spiritual power, Jacobs said. “God has invested in you powers you can use for God,” he said.
“Read the Bible every day, pray and share Christ,” he added. “Stay in fellowship with the church and fellow Christians.”
Eds: Power Team’s weekly TV show appears on Saturday nights on Trinity Broadcasting Network.
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