Hometown evangelist - Colby Meyer inspired to share message of hope

Two years ago, when Paul VanDeBerg and hundreds of other parents of Brandon Valley graduating seniors that year listened as a young man spoke at baccalaureate ceremonies, he thought to himself, “That young man should be a pastor.”

The young man VanDeBerg noted is Colby Meyer, and VanDeBerg’s pastoral career thought about the young man wasn’t far off the mark.

“My plan has always been to become an evangelist, which is similar to a pastor, just slightly different,” Meyer explains. “Evangelists are different in the way that we’re not necessarily in the four walls of a church. We go out and we want to reach the lost. That’s our goal.”

Earlier this month, Meyer was part of the effort behind the two-night Festival of Life at McHardy Park. The event was organized by Sioux Falls-based Victory Life Church. 

From Brandon Valley after graduating in 2023, Meyer attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., for a year.  He then transferred to Rhema Bible Training College, where he’s learning more about evangelism, and will be awarded a certificate of completion next year.

“What it does is it equips you and teaches you and prepares you to go out and do the work that that Jesus talked about. Mark, chapter 16, the Great Commission, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’ So that’s the work that you’re getting prepared for when you go to Bible College. You’re getting prepared to go out and do what God called you to do and to reach the lost,” Meyer said.

Meyer was 18 when he found God.

“I felt called to evangelism, because at one point, I, myself was lost. It’s a gift that I think God puts in certain people. Some people have a gift to pastor people, and then there’s people that are called to go out and gather people and bring them to the Lord, and pray for people. Pray for the sick, pray for the people that need it. And that’s exactly the route I felt called to do,” he said.

Meyer has witnessed God’s grace many, many times over in his young life.

“I’ve seen financial testimonies. I remember one time I felt impressed on my heart by God to give a large amount of money to someone, and then shortly after that, I had someone come up and give me a check for triple the amount of what that money was. That’s a Bible principle, sowing and reaping, giving and returning back a blessing from God for being willing to give to someone,” he shared.

And there’s more.

“I had my whole school paid for last year. I had random scholarship money come in left and right that I never applied for,” he said. “I’ve seen the lame walk. I’ve seen a kid that was blind be able to see again. I’ve seen someone that was deaf be able to hear again. It goes on and on, and it’s just getting started, so it just gets better and better.”

Meyer was elated to have a part in bringing the Festival of Life to Brandon.

“This is a vision that Pastor Kolby Johnson had to do in South Dakota and in the surrounding towns. I linked up with him and saw the vision that he was trying to complete, and it was something that I felt compelled to do,” he said.

It was also the first event of this magnitude that he delivered the message of God’s love to the masses.

“I’ve preached a handful of other places, like at a homeless shelter down here in Tulsa, Okla., and a few different smaller things like that. But that was the first large outreach that I’ve ever preached at,” he said.

But it won’t be the last. 

He’ll travel to Missouri and Sao Paulo, Brazil this summer, and he’ll do so with confidence.

“I have seen other great men of God do it before me, and they definitely inspired the way that I did it (gave the message),” he said, recognizing Jonathan Shuttlesworth, a pastor. Shuttlesworth organized a multi-day event two years ago during the Sturgis Bike Rally, and has done many more across the U.S.

Traveling the world to share God’s word doesn’t come free. But Meyer isn’t concerned about his bank account. He knows God will provide.

“When God calls you to do something, he never calls you to do it without equipping you, and so, God always provides,” he said. “The Bible says that ‘He gives seed to the sower and that every need is met according to his riches and glory through Christ Jesus.’ That’s a scripture. And so, when God calls you to do something, there’s always a way that he provides for it, and that’s where your faith comes into play. It’s believing that God called me to this work, and that because he called me for it, he’ll make sure it’s funded. God uses people to fund the work of the ministry and to see things like this happen. So that’s why in the Bible it talks about giving to ministers and giving to the churches. It’s not so you can pay someone’s salary, but it’s because you want to see someone go out and help the lost before it’s too late.” 

Meyer doesn’t have his entire future mapped out. He’s leaving that in God’s hands. But he does know that it will involve planting out of a church somewhere.

“I don’t know where that church is yet, what city I’ll plant out of or where I’ll be. That’s up to me praying it out and seeing where I feel called to be at,” he shares. “I’ll plant at a church, but I’ll be traveling most of the time. I’m always up to go anywhere and preach anywhere, so all I need is an invite and people hanging out. I’ll come in and we’ll hold ‘services’ or ‘meetings’ to stir people in their faith and get them excited about the things of God and wanting to do something great for God in this lifetime that we have.”

Over two nights in a park in his hometown, Meyer proclaimed his faith and shared the word of God and the promise of eternal life with an estimated 500 people. He defines the experience as “beautiful.”

“It’s a beautiful thing to see God do something in people’s lives and seeing their lives changed and touched forever. Whether we know it or now, the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy, and it takes one touch from God to change something in someone’s life to turn things around. That’s really what it was about,” he said. “There’s a reason that my heart was laid heavy on it. It was because I wanted to touch the people that see God, touch the people that I was around my whole life in the community that I grew up in. It was great.”