Carlin Connelly has a passion for Christ that she wants to share with other youth. It is like a burning fire she hopes will spread throughout the community.

Connelly was among several young people who converged on the First Baptist Church Family Life Center early Thursday morning along with other community members and clergy, government and education officials for a fall prayer breakfast.

Sponsored by the Orangeburg-Calhoun Association of Clergy and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the third annual fall prayer breakfast fostered a spirit of thanksgiving and prayer under the theme "Rescuing and Embracing our Children and our Community through Character."

The Rev. Jack Easterby, chaplain of the University of South Carolina basketball team, served as featured speaker.

He enthusiastically emphasized passion, purpose and preparation as the three ingredients needed for the spiritual empowerment of the Orangeburg community, especially youth like Connelly, who was joined by a group from her church.

The 15-year-old Orangeburg Preparatory School student and other members of her youth group from Northside Baptist Church have planned what they've called a "radical youth revolution" with a Focus On God, or F.O.G., event to be held on Saturday in Orangeburg.

"The passion behind his message was so good. It was amazing. To have a radical youth revolution, you have to have passion. So I think it will be very, very helpful to take what he said today and apply it to what we're trying to do with F.O.G. The whole thing is about God because it is all about him," Connelly said.

Her fellow youth group member, Rachel Myers, 17 ,said, "We want it to be nondenominational. We wanted it to be a place where anyone who is young and wants to be closer to God can come."

Easterby, a former star athlete and scholar at Newberry College, said the community must work to spread the gospel of Christ just as Paul did in Athens in the Book of Acts.

"I want to challenge Orangeburg to be passionate," he said, while admonishing the audience to not have a strong desire to worship athletes and educational pursuits, however, but God.

"We're all made and wired to worship something. I was passionate about basketball, but we don't know what can be accomplished ... when we take the passion we have ... and pour it into the gospel and see what things it can do," Easterby said.

Having a purpose in worship is critical, he said. After having tried 10 different diets in the last three weekends, he says he's found out the importance of narrowing down a purpose in life. He said glorifying God should be everybody's purpose in life.

"I can try something new every day, but if I don't have a purpose, then I got no shot. Jesus had a purpose. God created us for one reason ... and that is to worship him," he said, noting that every individual must now prepare to meet him.

"Will that be your preparation daily? Why would we settle? Our life might be the only Bible that someone reads today. Give God all you got because he gave you all he had," Easterby said.

After the Rev. Larry Jones of First Baptist Church of Orangeburg delivered a mellifluous rendition of "To God Be the Glory," prayers were sent up from clergymen, including the Rev. John Powell of the First Church of the Nazarene for the rescue and embrace of the community's children.

"This is our investment in the future," he said, noting that adults should work to have children "see Jesus" in their lives.

The Rev. Shane Wall of Orangeburg's Feast of the Lord Church prayed for the rescue of the community.

"Our prayer is not to empower God, but to empower ourselves ... . We don't take it lightly," Wall said.

This weekend's F.O.G. event will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday at the old bowling ally on the Highway 21 Bypass at 1846 Joe Jeffords Highway. It is for grades 6-12 and will include pizza and music.

T&D Staff Writer Dionne Gleaton can be reached by e-mail at dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5534. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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