Confluence students answer calls to faith, ministry, and mission By HENRY DURAND, The Christian Index Monday, October 19, 2026 MCDONOUGH, Ga. — Organizers of Confluence, the Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s annual collegiate gathering, reported 22 professions of faith, 118 responses to a call to ministry, and 651 other decisions or commitments during the Oct. 9-11 conference. More than 1,160 college students registered for the gathering at Eagle’s Landing First Baptist Church. Students heard messages throughout the weekend calling them to personal revival, evangelism, repentance, and living on mission. Daniel Doss, worship leader at New Vision Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn., led worship throughout the weekend. Students also attended breakout sessions addressing evangelism, prayer, missions, mental health, cultural pressures, local church involvement, and discerning a call to ministry. Steven, a Gordon State student, had been sensing a call to serve as a worship leader. During a breakout session on the call to ministry, he heard the leader challenge students to use the gifts God had given them. He said the challenge confirmed that he needed to say yes to that call. Royce Railey, campus minister at Columbus State University, said Confluence had a significant impact on students from CSU BCM. “We have quite a few new students,” Railey said, “and the worship and breakouts impacted many of them significantly. I think something just as important was the community connection that was built while those students were together for the whole weekend.” Levi Skipper, senior pastor of Sagemont Church in Houston, delivered a message Friday evening from Psalm 51 on “revival of your heart.” “Our challenge is to be more evangelistic,” Skipper told the students. “And the reality is you and I will never talk about Jesus to others unless our hearts are revived and we’re actually walking with the Lord Jesus Christ.” Sin had left David functioning normally while something inside him had died, Skipper explained. “David was living proof that a man can keep his position, he can keep his reputation, he can keep his routines, while his heart quietly turns to stone." Skipper urged students who had grown distant from God to see Him clearly, seek His cleansing, and ask Him for the new heart David sought in his prayer of repentance in Psalm 51. He also presented the gospel to students who did not know Christ. King Level, a political science student at Kennesaw State University, said he felt the spiritual renewal he had needed. “Revival is an understatement,” he said. “Jesus is super real, and I rededicated my life to Him, and I’m taking it more seriously.” Level said that means more than making a decision at a conference and then returning to the same life. “I learned what I needed to learn this weekend,” he said. “Going out and making disciples, going out and praying for people, the neighborhood, and that prayer actually does change things.” Level added that he could not afford to attend Confluence, but someone stepped in to make it possible. “My way was provided,” Level said. “It made a crazy good impact on myself and everyone that I came into contact with.” On Saturday morning, Skipper turned to Colossians 3, using an illustration of changing clothes to describe the difference Christ should make in a believer’s life. Skipper contrasted the “old clothes” of anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive speech, and lying with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and forgiveness. The "new clothes," he said, should be evident in how Christians live each day. “No one should be shocked to find out that you follow Christ." Kassidy Leverette, a student at Georgia Southwestern State University, said she hoped to be more intentional in her walk with God “by showing His love through my actions and how I treat others daily.” Shane Pruitt, Next Gen director for the North American Mission Board, preached Saturday evening from 2 Corinthians 5 on “revival of your mission.” The gospel, Pruitt told the students, changes both identity and activity. Those who belong to Christ, he said, are not waiting until some future point to become part of the church. “You are the church right now. And you have a calling of God on your life.” Pruitt focused on three things God has given every Christian: a ministry, a message, and the means to carry it out. The ministry, Pruitt said, is reconciliation. Their mission field is wherever God has placed them: on their campuses, in their jobs, clubs, neighborhoods, families, and among the nations. “The church is not a building to be maintained; it’s a people to be mobilized,” he said.  Pruitt cautioned against two extremes in evangelism. “Nowhere in the Bible does it give us an excuse to be a jerk for Jesus,” he said. “But nowhere in the Bible does it give us an excuse to be a coward for Christ either.” He urged students to pray for lost friends, live differently before them, and speak the gospel. “If we’re befriending people, but we never get to a point of sharing the gospel, that’s not evangelism,” Pruitt said. Lucy Baccino described the message as a challenge “to be more bold in my faith and to share the gospel with the people around me, even when there’s a chance of rejection.” Pruitt walked through man’s sin and separation from God, Christ’s death and resurrection, and the call to repent and believe. “We may be good at sinning, but Jesus is better at saving sinners,” he declared. The power to carry out the mission does not come from believers themselves, Pruitt said. Pointing to Paul’s statement that God is “making His appeal through us,” he told the students that the Holy Spirit will work through them as they carry the gospel into their schools, workplaces, families, and communities. Pruitt closed by asking students to identify their next step of obedience. “If your version of Christianity is always safe, convenient, comfortable, and mainly about you, that might be some American version of Christianity, but that’s not New Testament Christianity,” he said. On Sunday morning, Pruitt turned to Acts 19 and “Revival in Your City.” He told students that revival is more than an extended worship service, an emotional response, or what he jokingly called “Holy Spirit goosebumps.” “When God’s people get serious about the calling of God on their life to know Him and to make Him known and to walk in repentance and holiness,” Pruitt said, “lives change. Communities change. Campuses change. Churches change. Nations change.” Pruitt identified three kinds of repentance in Acts 19: repentance leading to salvation, false repentance, and repentance as an ongoing way of life. “God does extraordinary things through ordinary people who go all in,” Pruitt said. He then described the Ephesian believers who publicly abandoned practices that were incompatible with their faith and burned the books associated with them. “What needs to be literally or metaphorically burned out in your life this morning?” Pruitt asked. “What is the thing that’s tripping you up as you follow Jesus? What is the thing in your life that’s robbing your affection for Christ?” That challenge hit home with Taylor McDuffie, a sophomore elementary education major at Georgia Southern University who said she rededicated her life during the weekend. “Burn it. Burn it. Get rid of it,” McDuffie said. “If it doesn’t align with God, get rid of it.” Pruitt told students that a life of repentance is lived one choice at a time — choosing Christ when temptation and distraction come, rather than depending on willpower. “The call today is stop trying, start trusting,” he said. David Kirkland, campus minister at Georgia College & State University, said he saw God working in students throughout the weekend as they responded to the gospel and surrendered areas of their lives to Him. “My prayer is that this wasn’t just an emotional weekend, but a defining moment that will shape how these students live for Christ and impact their campuses for years to come,” Kirkland said. --- PHOTOS --- File: 20261019-102518-b1e-Altar 3-5.jpg Caption: Students pray at the altar on the last day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102530-a53-Notes 2.jpg Caption: Students take notes during a message on the first day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102535-7f9-Levi 5.jpg Caption: Levi Skipper preaches on the first day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102542-243-Worship 22a.jpg Caption: Students worship on the first day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102552-76c-Shane 2-7.jpg Caption: Shane Pruitt preaches on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102558-6cd-Dodgeball 2-57.jpg Caption: Students celebrate a victory in the dodgeball tournament on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102617-110-Altar 2-1.jpg Caption: Students pray at the altar on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102620-e1b-Arrival 6.jpg Caption: Students cheer to welcome others on the first day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102629-0cc-Dodgeball 2-93.jpg Caption: Students play dodgeball on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102634-3d6-Levi 2-5.jpg Caption: Levi Skipper preaches on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102637-6ee-Shane 3-10.jpg Caption: Shane Pruitt preaches on the last day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102645-fef-Worship 3-4.jpg Caption: The worship band at Eagle's Landing Baptist Church leads worship on the last day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102647-b5d-Worship 2-21.jpg Caption: Daniel Doss leads worship on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102650-b57-Prayer 2-1.jpg Caption: Students pray at the altar on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102709-8fa-Dodgeball 2-106.jpg Caption: A team from Valdosta State celebrates winning the dodgeball tournament on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102712-dd1-Shane 2-1.jpg Caption: Shane Pruitt preaches on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102713-2da-Levi 2-17.jpg Caption: Levi Skipper preaches on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102718-77e-Dodgeball 2-91.jpg Caption: A student leaps to avoid being hit during a dodgeball tournament on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102724-dda-Arrival 18.jpg Caption: Students cheer to welcome others on the first day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102726-9f9-Worship 28.jpg Caption: Students worship on the first day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102728-d0e-Prayer 3.jpg Caption: Students pray on the first day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102730-665-Bibles 1.jpg Caption: Students read from the Bible on the first day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102731-b94-Decisions 4.jpg Caption: Students pray at the altar on the first day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102743-1eb-Dodgeball 2-36.jpg Caption: A student reacts to being hit during a dodgeball tournament on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261019-102744-28b-Worship 2-1.jpg Caption: Daniel Doss leads worship on the second day of Confluence, Oct. 11, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand)