Seek and Save Sets Sights on Columbus

While many spent this past weekend in preparation for General Council 2023, a team of ministries and volunteers canvassed streets and neighborhoods in Columbus, Ohio at the most recent Seek and Save event. The week before General Council 2023, the Seek and Save volunteers spent three days evangelizing the city. “We passed out literature, we held sports clinics, we knocked on doors and handed out personal invitations, and more,” says Wilfredo De Jesus, the General Treasurer of the Assemblies of God. “We knew that to plant seeds, we needed to spend some time turning over the soil of the city,” he says.

Seek and Save, which has seen over 707 salvations and 75 baptism since their launch, partnered with Ohio State Troopers for the event in an effort to bring peace to the law enforcement and civilian tensions. “Friday, as Convoy of Hope unloaded a truck of supplies for the event, over 20 troopers came out and volunteered their time filling sacks with food, hygiene items, and school supplies,” says Bert Pizarro, Special Project Coordinator for the event.  

“It is the first time we have involved officers in our event but the interactions between the troopers and community members was a beautiful sight,” remarks De Jesus. The state troopers also brought in their helicopter so that kids could see it and climb inside to get an up-close look at something they may see flying overhead during the day.

Seek and Save utilized 265 volunteers and 42 different organizations and churches from all over Ohio to help reach the city of Columbus for Christ. These volunteers handed out over 5,000 bags across their two sites. Multiply Church, one of the host church sites, was completely revitalized as part of the event, with the help of Church Mobilization, and received fresh paint, new landscaping, and small carpentry work.

The event also drew in the Mayor of Columbus, Andrew Ginther. During the week of evangelism, 21 pastors from around the area were able to meet with Ginther to hear ways that the church could be more involved in the community and the pastors were able to express ways in which the community could come alongside the church.

Across the two host sites, Multiply Church and Revive Church Hilltop, this event saw 1,750 in attendance, 311 people prayed for, 143 salvations, 2 on-site baptisms, and 2 physical healings, according to the event team.

Testimonies are already pouring in from last weekend’s event. One such testimony came from a street evangelism team as they were out on the streets. “The team saw a woman with a flat tire so they pulled over to help,” says Pizarro. “They struck up a conversation with her, told her about the love of Jesus, and she gave her heart to the Lord,” he says. Additionally, the team noticed that woman had a satanic book in the trunk of her car and she allowed them to get rid of it for her.

Seek and Save has five other events across the United States scheduled for 2023 and will host five events in 2024 before the start of summer. According to the Ohio Church Multiplication site page for the event, the goal of this initiative as a whole is to “saturate cities around America with the gospel.”