Program Founder Promotes Released Time Through Local Crusades
by Jim Brown
April 16, 2004
(AgapePress) - A Christian outreach program that was started by a Tennessee pastor in 1990 to share the gospel with students in one public school is now being implemented throughout the United States.This May, more than 2,000 public school students in the Volunteer State are expected to attend an area-wide Christian crusade as part of the popular "released time" program. Students with parental permission will hear Christian music and a gospel message during school time, but off school premises, at a local park in Union County, Tennessee.
Pastor Gary Beeler, founder of Crusade Ministries, says when he began a released time outreach in Union County 14 years ago, he had no idea that his program would become a model implemented by hundreds of schools across the country to allow students to receive religious instruction off campus. For him it was, from the very beginning, a matter of obedience.
During the growth and the evolution of the program, Beeler says the Lord showed him a vision of a door. "That door was open probably less than one fourth of the way," he says, "and I looked through that little crack and I could see in that vision that on the other side of that door was America. And a still, small voice said, 'When I open that door to you, are you willing to go through?' And I pondered for a few seconds, and then I said, 'Yes, Lord, I am.'"
Since then, the released time movement has flourished. The founder of the program says it has dramatically improved the lives, and even the conduct, of local students. "Even our bus drivers tell us they have less behavioral problems on the bus following a crusade; the janitors of the schools will tell you that they see less problems out of the students; and, of course, the teachers and faculty and central office all share the same stories -- it's pretty well a universal thing," he says.
The idea of releasing public school students for devotional religious study off school premises in the U.S. was first discussed in 1905 at a New York City conference and an early program was implemented in 1914 in Gary, Indiana's schools by the innovative superintendent, Dr. William Wirt, who believed that the church, home, playground, library, and school were all components in a child's education. But it wasn't until the 1990s that the term "released time" became widely used and the program took on the shape and characteristics of the national movement that exists today, largely due to Gary Beeler's local model, and his passionate promotion of released time spiritual education for young people.
Even though he is a full-time pastor, Beeler is now traveling the country and helping to organize more released time crusades that feature Christian music, a salvation message, and an altar call. According to the pastor, since the inception of released time, approximately ten percent of the Union County population has been saved by the grace of God.
Now Beeler is committed to offering a crusade to every school district in America -- and the hub of each event, he says, is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
