DES MOINES, Iowa (BP) – About 6,000 college students were challenged to use their lives for the cause of Christ at the recent Salt Company conference.
The 10th annual conference took place Jan. 3-5 at the Iowa Event Center in Des Moines during the mid-winter break from college and university classes.
“The Salt Company Conference is a powerful event,” Mark Vance, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Ames, Iowa, told Baptist Press. “Every year, we see hundreds of college students surrender their lives to Christ and return to their campuses energized to spread the Gospel.”
The Salt Company is a Southern Baptist college ministry born at the same time a church is planted, always in a town with a sizable university. Thirty Salt Company groups are scattered across the nation, with 11 more in the pre-start phase.
At any given week during the year, about 12,000 students nationwide affiliated with a Salt Company attend Thursday evening local worship events. The rest of the week there are dozens of small Bible study groups meeting in dorms or elsewhere on each campus.
Each January, the Salt Company conference joins other conferences geared toward young adults that happen around the same time, such as Passion, which drew around 40,000 to Atlanta, and Cross Con, which saw around 15,000 in Louisville, Ky., both in the first week of the year.
More than 6,000 college students and Salt Company leaders attended the recent conference, including 5,800 from all 30 Salt Company college and university ministries, an uncounted number from non-Salt Company schools, plus about 200 adult leaders.
They swarmed into Des Moines, looking for lodging wherever they could score a bed with whatever money the college students had.
“Some stayed in motels, four or more to a room,” Vance said. “A ton of people stayed in the basements of host homes. A Christian camp opened their doors.”
Some food was supplied by the Iowa Event Center, and host homes provided meals for their guests.
“College students know where to find food,” Vance said with a grin. “Des Moines’ Chick-fil-A was a busy place all three days.”
Worship for the conference was led by a collective of musicians from across the nation, each one connected with the Salt Company.
Biblical teaching always is a cornerstone of the event. This year Colossians chapter 3 and verses 1-6 of chapter 4 provided the framework for the instruction.
In The English Standard Version, the chapter heading is “Put on the new self.” In the Holman Christian Standard Version, it’s “The life of the new man.” Chapter 3:2 reads, “Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth.” (HCSB)
Each of the four main sessions featured a speaker experienced in Salt Company ministry and the Salt Network, the organization for the churches deliberately started at the same time as the college group.
Solomon Rexius, pastor of Generations Church in Eugene, Oregon, led the first session. He spoke about setting our minds on things above and the power of our thoughts.
Christian Gracia, newly planting Kings City Church in Las Vegas, Nevada, spoke about putting sin to death. At the end, he invited his listeners to confess their sins to two or three people nearby, and repenting from them, trusting Jesus Christ with their life.
Austin Wadlow, pastor of The Commons Church in East Lansing, Michigan, spoke about loveand the need to release bitterness.
Paul Sabino, pastor of Salt Church in Gainesville, Florida, spoke about being devoted to prayer and taking every opportunity to share the Gospel.
“In the final session, Paul talked about being devoted to prayer and taking every opportunity to share the Gospel,” Vance said. “The students were asked to stand if they were going on mission next summer, or if they were planning after graduation to move to another college town and help start a church there. I looked around and there were hundreds standing, 700 to 1,000 if not more.”
All four speakers served in the past at Cornerstone Church in Ames, Iowa, where the Salt Company and Salt Network started, the college ministry in 1987, and the church network in 2017.
The Salt Company conference also included 18 breakout sessions, such as personal holiness, God’s will, and healing family brokenness.
Pruitt, national Next Gen director for the North American Mission Board, spoke about personal evangelism, how to live on mission and be intentional in pointing your friends to Jesus.
Pruitt walked his listeners through how to evangelistically pray for their spiritually lost friends and family, and students wrote down the names of spiritually lost friends they committed to pray for every day, starting that very moment.
“Then I walked them through how to clearly and concisely articulate the Gospel,” Pruitt told Baptist Press. “They got in pairs and practiced sharing the Gospel with each other back and forth.
“At the end I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be tragic if you learned how to share the Gospel with others, even practiced sharing the Gospel with others, but you didn’t personally have a relationship with Jesus yourself? Maybe the person in your life who needs the Gospel first is you,’” Pruitt continued. “’You can’t share with others someone you don’t have yourself.’”
He then gave a gospel invitation, and 21 students stood up, “indicating they had just repented of their sin, and placed their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,” Pruitt continued. “It was incredible.”
College students today are much more interested in spiritual things than many churches realize, Vance said. If reached by the Gospel and taught to share the Gospel, they could carry the gospel throughout North America and around the world.
“Twenty-one people gave their lives to Christ in that session,” Vance said. “To see God move in such a tangibly powerful way in a simple breakout session was one of my highlights for the whole weekend.
“Ultimately, if our goal is to reach North America with the Gospel, reaching the next generation of university students is absolutely essential,” Vance continued. “The Salt Company Conference is yet another evidence that God is doing a powerful work in this generation.”
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