At Challenge Youth Conference in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, Churches of Christ youth tour fire-hit Gatlinburg

At Challenge Youth Conference, a Christian comedy duo paused their performance in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., to lead thousands of teenagers in the children’s song “This Little Light of Mine.” The moment came during a largely lighthearted program by Ben Hayes and Travis Creasy, known as Ben and Travis, at this year’s conference.

The event took place in a East Tennessee community at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains that had, in the previous three months, experienced wildfires in nearby Gatlinburg. Relief groups, nonprofits and ministries from faith groups, including Churches of Christ, helped the hundreds displaced by the fires begin recovering and rebuilding.

Logan Wallace, a member of the Tuscumbia Church of Christ in Alabama, said the damage was less widespread than news coverage suggested. “There was a lot of devastation, but it wasn’t as much as the news portrayed it to be,” he said. Wallace said he had expected much of downtown Gatlinburg to be gone, but he was surprised to find much of the tourist destination intact. While at the conference, he and other youths drove the eight miles to Gatlinburg to go snow tubing or visit attractions.

Away from downtown Gatlinburg, however, a historic hotel had been reduced to an ashen shell, and only bare foundations remained where cabins once stood in the mountains. Wallace, whose family once experienced a house fire, said he empathized with those who lost property in the late-November blazes.

Larry Davenport, director of the conference, known as CYC, said many youths regard the tragedy, which killed 14 people and damaged 2,500 buildings, as something that happened long ago. Davenport and other organizers wanted participants “to be aware that … people are still healing from it.”

Davenport, a development official at Mars Hill Bible School in Florence, Ala., said that when he and fellow organizers launched CYC in 2000, their goal was “a solid, scriptural, Bible-based conference” that would challenge young people to live for Christ in a world often indifferent to that kind of life. The conference has roots in youth events among Churches of Christ in the Florence area. Organizers later planned a larger gathering in Pigeon Forge. The first event drew 325 people and grew to 800 the next year. The event moved to Gatlinburg until 2015, when it returned to Pigeon Forge.

Allen Wilson, a third-year attendee from the North Jackson Church of Christ in Tennessee, said members of his congregation went to Gatlinburg after the fires to help with relief efforts, a picture of care for neighbors in need (Matthew 25:35). Wilson said he enjoys the congregational singing at the conference, which he described as something “that a lot of people don’t get to experience.” He said he hoped the young Christians’ presence would also benefit the community, both by boosting the regional economy and by bringing “a shining light of encouragement.”

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