Prayer Kindles Growth in Youngsville

Jeff Finley

Jeff Finley is this magazine’s executive editor. He joined the Light+Life team in 2011 after a dozen years of reporting and editing for Sun-Times Media. He is a member of John Wesley Free Methodist Church where his wife, Jen, serves as the lead pastor.

By Jeff Finley

The fires of awakening are burning at Youngsville Free Methodist Church in Pennsylvania with 76 people baptized in 2022 among other signs of life, but don’t look for a complicated program to explain the spiritual kindling that’s taking place. Instead, church leaders link the growth to a spiritual discipline that should be common for every Christian — prayer.

In an interview with Light + Life, Senior Pastor Rick Hamrick and Associate Pastor Kathy Thompson explained that they attended a February 2022 Church Development Network training event led by Free Methodist Elders J.R. Rushik and Chris Pulice. Rushik referenced Jesus’ words in Luke 10:2, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field,” and then challenged them to set their alarm for 10:02 to join in prayer.

“I set mine to 10:02 a.m., and we all prayed right then, and I promptly forgot all about it. That was Saturday. On Sunday, my phone went off in church. We stopped and prayed,” Hamrick said. “I said, ‘Hey, every day, this is what we’re doing. We’re going to pray.’ … The following Sunday, a bunch of our alarms went off during church.”

Church members embraced the practice of praying at 10:02 each morning.

“It just became a daily office.” — Rick Hamrick

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“Stories started to roll in. Guys would say, ‘Hey, I was on the job site. My alarm went off, and [co-workers] said, ‘What’s going on? Why is your alarm going off at 10:02? Do you have to be somewhere?’ And [church members] would share their testimony about ‘Well, this is what my church is doing.’ And the foreman on the job would say, ‘Hey, I’m a Christian too. Why don’t we just stop and pray?’” Hamrick recalled. “It just became a daily office. It became a routine of our life. At 10:02, we’re praying that God would send workers out into the harvest field and that He would help us to realize where the harvest is so we wouldn’t miss it, that we would train up harvesters ourselves, that we would be harvesters.”

The church has traditionally made Lent a time of prayer and fasting, but Youngsville leaders believe God is leading them in a different direction for 2023.

“Instead of praying and fasting for the weeks leading up to Easter and then stopping, we’re going to start at Easter and pray through to Pentecost,” Hamrick said. “Easter is really the beginning of what happens when you start talking about being a Spirit-fueled movement. You have to go to Pentecost.”

Baptism Boom

A creek runs through the church property, which traditionally has been the site of the church’s baptism services.

“We have a little set of stairs built out to the creek, and, every year in June or July, we’ll baptize maybe 12 people at best,” said Hamrick, who noted that an additional baptism service sometimes is held in August for interested people who were unable to be part of the previous service. However, last year’s baptism interest differed from previous years. “We noticed we had a lot of people signed up for our first one, and then more kept coming.”

Additional baptism services were held in the weeks that followed. Then the congregation held an “underground church Sunday” with services at multiple offsite locations, including 25 homes. One group decided to meet under a bridge instead of in a building.

“They pulled up a bunch of chairs under the bridge, and they were going to do a baptism since they were down there. A guy came by walking his dog. [The man] accepted the Lord and was baptized,” said Hamrick, adding that another group decided to do baptisms at a home service.

Baptisms continued at locations other than the church creek.

“We had some we did in a hot tub. We had some we did indoors — a little swimming pool kind of thing. We poured water over them,” Thompson said. “We used multiple ways of baptizing.”

The wave of baptisms occurred without additional emphasis from the pastoral team.

“Could it really be that easy? Could that be what God has been waiting for?” — Rick Hamrick

“We didn’t preach on baptisms. We didn’t pray to baptize more people. We weren’t even thinking about it. … I did not realize what was happening immediately,” said Hamrick, who began pondering the situation after nearly 40 people had been baptized. “I stood up in church on Sunday and said, ‘It just occurs to me that we have been praying at 10:02, and look how many people got baptized.’ And then I said, ‘Could it really be that easy? Could that be what God has been waiting for — the whole body of Christ coming together and just saying, ‘Lord, provide workers for the harvest’?’”

Making Disciples

Youngsville emphasizes small groups. These groups are designed with inspiration from the book “Real-Life Discipleship: Building Churches That Make Disciples” by Jim Putman. Group members are given a list of Bible stories.

“Everybody in the group picks a week, and then they read through the story a couple of times, and they tell the story in their group. We have a list of exegetical questions that they can ask of one another, so that everyone gets a chance to learn and trust that God can help them grow,” Hamrick said. “From our youngest believers to our most mature believers, everybody is being fed by sharing the story amongst one another.”

The approach brought greater longevity and participation to the small groups, which Hamrick called the church’s “primary way of creating disciples.” Other efforts include helping church members participate in the Church Development Network, the New Room Conference, and the College of Prayer International.

Years ago, after Bishop Emeritus Richard Snyder taught church leaders about holiness, Youngsville small groups began emphasizing holiness and surrender to God. The church’s direction also was influenced by engagement with the Free Methodist Church USA’s National Prayer Ministry. During the 2018 National Prayer Summit in Spring Arbor, Michigan, church leaders were especially impacted by the teaching of “Leading the Presence-Driven Church” author John Piippo.

“Sometimes it takes off in the wrong direction, but people are learning, and other times it’s just incredible.” — Rick Hamrick

“We decided that in our worship services, we would allow room at the end of the worship service to be present. We talked to the congregation and said, ‘If you have something that you feel you want to share, then we will make time for this at the end of the service,’ and that took off. Sometimes it takes off in the wrong direction, but people are learning, and other times it’s just incredible,” Hamrick said. “It’s not uncommon for us to stop a worship service, and the congregation comes down to the front. There are two services; you might be talking about 150 people coming down and surrounding someone at the front that we’re praying for — praying for healing, for breakthrough, whatever it happens to be. That usually happens after the sermon, but sometimes it happens in other places. We’re growing in that way.”

Reaching and Feeding the Community

While many congregations have declined in attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic, Youngsville FMC has continued to grow. In a community with a population of 1,700, the church now has an average attendance of nearly 365 people each Sunday with more than 400 people coming on some Sundays.

“Pastor Rick has such a connection to the Holy Spirit, speaking through him to us. The messages that we have been hearing for the last few years have been challenging. They’ve been uplifting,” said Thompson, who added that people often tell her they’ve noticed Hamrick has “a real anointing from the Holy Spirit.”

Ministry isn’t limited to Sunday mornings. The church is home to the Helping Hands Food Ministry. The food distribution includes donated items from a nearby Walmart and a Country Fair convenience store.

“Stuff that they used to throw away, now we go pick it up. Every Friday we have food here for people to come, and they can come through and pick up what they want and need,” said Thompson, who added that the pantry gives away approximately 6,000 pounds of food in a month. “A lot of times, you’ll find people who will take multiples of stuff, and then they’ll be giving it to other people out in the community.”

Every other Monday evening, church members also distribute food in the community.

“They’ll take bags of food and go out into lower income areas, trailer parks, housing developments, and it’s amazing to see how people are receptive,” she said. “The food is the means in order to be able to share the gospel with them, and so we’ve had people who now come to our church because we have done that.”

The church recently baptized a man whose initial contact was food delivery to his home. “He wanted to experience more, and so then he and his family started coming,” Thompson said.

“It’s the people who love the Lord. They sacrifice. They serve.” — Rick Hamrick

Some church members take turns driving trailer trucks to pick up the food.

“You can’t really tell the story of Youngsville by saying it was a top-down thing. This was organic,” Hamrick said. “It’s the people who love the Lord. They sacrifice. They serve. God is blessing it. It’s just incredible.”