Total Surrender Ministries to visit region
<span>Representatives from Extreme Power and Total Surrender Ministries are coming to the area April 20 through 26 and will be speaking to local schools during the day and offering free, strength-based demonstrations at night.</span>
<span>Extreme Power is a group of professional athletes who use feats of strength to perform motivational assemblies all over the world, according to its website.</span>
<span>"It started in 1979 with John Jacobs and feat strength ministry," said Matthew Stout, event coordinator and vice president of Team Surrender Ministries. "He realized he could rip phone books and break police handcuffs and since then, we use our strength as a tool to attract people who may not go to church.</span>
<span>"They may attend to see people put their heads through concrete blocks and break bats."</span>
<span>Extreme Power will be having demonstrations each night at Grace Church Ministries in Chester (2100 State St.) starting at 7 p.m. April 22. Doors open at 6 p.m.</span>
<span>"We presented the opportunity and some people jumped on board and said 'Let's do it," Stout said of the collaboration with Grace Church. "It's been a year in the making."</span>
<span>Stout and fellow Extreme Power representatives Greg Mead and David Denizot will also be speaking at an assembly at St. John Lutheran School in Chester at 9 a.m. on April 22.</span>
<span>Additional school assemblies are planned for Sparta High School, Steeleville Elementary School, Steeleville High School, Trico Elementary School and Trico Junior High School.</span>
<span> </span>"We more or less talk about believing in your dreams and goals," Stout said. "If you believe it and conceive it, you can achieve it."
<span>The mission of Extreme Power's assemblies, according to its website, is "challenging students to live a life of significance, a life of excellence."</span>
<span>Extreme Power also encourages students to respect authority and become a leader.</span>
<span>"We were in Arkansas and I had some high school students come up and talk to me," Stout said. "One of them told me 'What you said during the assembly really spoke to me. I was going to go home and end my life, but seeing how you got through it really spoke to me."</span>
<span>Extreme Power promotes the theme "If you can believe, you can achieve" and boasts more than 10,000 school assemblies performed in its history.</span>
<span>"Even if someone in the classroom says you can't do it, even if a bully on the playground says you can't do it, don't let drugs and alcohol get in the way of achieving your dreams," Stout said.</span>
<span>Mead is president and founder of the Extreme Power organization and his bio on Extreme Power's website lists more than 16 years experience as a student motivator.</span>
<span>"Two previous presidential administrations rated these assemblies as the most effective assemblies being held in schools today," Mead wrote on the website.</span>
<span>Stout, who is a former semi-pro football player, will also be performing this week during the nightly events at Grace Church.</span>
<span>"I do it all," he said. "Break bricks, bend steel with my teeth, blow up the hot water bottle. That's a fan-favorite for the older generation."</span>
<span>Stout said the group will be conducting between 12 and 15 school assemblies in the area and also encouraged people to attend the night sessions.</span>
<span>"The event's free and we'd like everybody to come out," he said.</span>