Evangelist Craig Cobb: YOUTH ABLAZE 2015

This year was the 24th annual Youth Ablaze meeting hosted by Pastor Hal Roscoe and the Chili Bible Baptist Church in Rochester, New York. I have known about this meeting for many years but have never been able to attend because the revival at New Hope Baptist Church has always been that same week. This year that meeting got moved up a week which allowed me to go. I saw Bro. Roscoe back in June and he asked me if I would be willing to fill one of the smaller time slots to preach. I was happy for the invitation and almost immediately the Lord burdened my heart to preach a salvation message.

I have been to many youth conferences, rallies and such over the years but I have to say that as far as a multi-day youth meeting this is by far the best. I have never heard not even one single negative thing about Youth Ablaze. Most often, the stories told to me always mentioned the spiritual emphasis that is put on the meeting. There are no skits and all of that sort of foolishness. I am not necessarily opposed to skits but most youth meetings have more of that kind of junk than they do the spiritual. The emphasis every year at Youth Ablaze is on PREACHING and PRAYER.

For many years Pastors Eddie Wyatt (Villa Rica, Georgia) and Tony Shirley (Marion, North Carolina) have been the main preachers. Then every year they invite a special "mystery" preacher. This year that was Pastor Charlie Clark III from Berlin, New Jersey. During each of the four services Bro. Roscoe gives a different man a 15-minute slot to preach. I was thrilled to preach Saturday morning to over 800 people. Thursday and Friday night (even in the snow storms that came each night) there were over 1,000 in attendance. The preaching was top-notch and God really moved in the hearts of the young people and adults as well. It was good to see so many churches I have had the privilege to preach in there. I sure enjoyed their fellowship. If memory serves, there were churches from 14 states and Canada represented.

I would highly recommend this meeting to churches to bring their young people to. It is always during Presidents Week in February which co-insides with most of the schools' winter vacation time. The meeting is hosted by Chili Bible Baptist Church and is held at Roberts Wesleyan College. The facilities are tremendous for what Bro. Roscoe and his hard-working church folks do!