HEMPFIELD TOWNSHIP

It's tough to tell which of the Power Team's many feats of strength are more impressive -- the physical or spiritual ones.

The Power Team is made up of 22 modern-day Samsons, world-class athletes who perform exhibitions of power and strength they combine with messages of motivation and inspiration.

Three team members have been performing and sharing their message with large crowds nightly at Bethel Life Worship Center on South Mercer Street since Wednesday.

The team, which attracted about 550 people on the first night, performs at 7 p.m. today and at the same time Sunday.

Of their feats, the physical ones are attention-getting.

Take Willie Raines, the biggest of the team members who came to Greenville. The Macon, Ga., native is 6 feet 2 inches, 295 pounds and has 22-inch biceps. He can roll up a frying pan like a burrito, run through two-by-fours and blow up a hot-water bottle in about 40 breaths.

Or Mark Sherman, a former major-league baseball player who works as a police officer in Tulsa, Okla. He is 6 feet tall, 245 pounds and has just 8-percent body fat, making him the leanest Power Team member. He can squeeze the pop out of unopened soda cans and bend steel bars over his head.

And then there is Craig Lemley, a 13-year veteran of the Power Team. The Oklahoma City, Okla., native is 6 feet 2 inches and 275 pounds. He can break baseball bats behind his back, tear a 1,500-page phone book and license plate in half and drive his head through an 8-foot-thick block of ice.

All of them make breaking brick blocks look routine.

The team's spiritual power, however, is meant to be its strongest suit.

"If you died right now, where would you go? Where would you spend eternity?" Lemley asked the crowd. "If you aren't 100 percent sure that you're going to Heaven, then I'm pretty sure that you're not."

Close to 100 people indicated they weren't sure and walked a "Miracle Mile" to the stage in the sanctuary as a profession of their faith in Jesus Christ and their desire to "get right with God." Some of those in the audience cried and others stood and stretched their arms above their heads.

For more than 20 years the Power Team has captivated crowds in more than 14,000 schools, prisons and in large venues like stadiums, coliseums and arenas.

Lemley said reaching out to young people is especially important, and doing it with dazzling shows is necessary.

"Thirty-seven years ago when prayer was taken out of schools, the worst thing teachers had to worry about was kids chewing gum and throwing paper airplanes. Today it's murder, gang violence, rape and pregnancy. We used to have tornado and fire drills in schools; today they have shooting drills," he said.

"We can't wait another 37 years. We've got to get fed up, fired up, stand up and speak up. We (churches) can't continue having pizza parties while music groups are having laser shows," Lemley said.

The team was founded by John Jacobs, a former teen-age powerlifting champ who discovered during Bible college that he could attract more people to God with amazing feats of physical strength than with a suit and tie and a Bible -- by breaking stones with his hands, not with fire-and-brimstone. He attracted his first large crowd, 700 prisoners, by promising to show inmates how he could break handcuffs with his hands.