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Saye's police mug shot, several decades old, graces the entrance to his Web site.

"In March of 1983, I was sitting in the prison chapel reading the Bible, and it was like the Lord spoke to my heart, and it was so real I looked around to see if someone had slipped up on me in the chapel," Saye said.

"He said, 'Tell people about my love and my forgiveness, that I didn't have to work up a sweat forgiving you,'" said the 62-year-old preacher. "I said, 'Lord, I'll go everywhere you send me."

For the past two decades, Saye has traveled the country telling young people and others that if Jesus could change him, Jesus can change anybody.

He’s also trying to get others off the road he traveled.

The message was not lost on the Rev. Brian Price, the youth minister at Cornerstone Baptist Church, which is hosting the youth crusade along with Fairfield United Methodist Church in High Point, and Pilot View Baptist and Greenwood Baptist churches in Thomasville.
Price, also a Greensboro police officer, was skeptical when he first heard about Saye's testimony.

"Literally, when you hear about him you are like, 'Yeah, right.' But I literally went and listened to Bill, and from the moment he started speaking … there’s no way that someone on their own could change like that without having accepted God," Price said.

"I hear people's stories day in and day out.…Personal tragedies put them in the situation, they're doing better — then I'm picking them up again for something else," said Price, who is friends with the youth ministers of the other churches.

"But for someone 25 years later still preaching the word of God, that's amazing."

Saye traces his wayward life back not to his first crime, but to being the 8-year-old that everyone constantly picked on.

"My family was very, very poor, and I had to start school barefoot and had two pair of worn overalls," Saye said. "When I walked in first grade, every student laughed at me and called me names. It wasn't being picked on sometimes; it was constant; it was all day long. It really did something to me. I was full of anger and hatred, and I didn't think anybody loved me. At 10, I was a thief, at 12 a runaway, at 13 a gang member."

Although his audience varies, he said he has a special place in his heart for young people.

"A lot of our young people feel like nobodies, that nobody cares," Saye said. "I try to show them that they are somebody and that God cares about them. I don't want them down the same road I was headed. It's a dead-end street, and it's going to end up in one of two places: the prison or the cemetery."

Chelsea Nolan, 14, of Randleman, one of the youth counselors at the event, said there are a lot of young people who worry that their lives are "too messed up" for God to love them.

"People are like, 'I’ve done so many bad things and the Lord won't love me,' and that's not the case," she said.

WANT TO GO?
What: "Set Free Galatians 5:1" Youth Crusade, featuring the Rev. Bill Saye (www.billsaye.org), along with Isaiah's Promise, a contemporary praise and worship band, and The Men of Valor, a chorus from Mount Zion Baptist Church
Where: Cornerstone Baptist Church, 1110 N.C. 62 West, High Point; outdoor event with lighting, stage, sound and seating on church grounds
When: 6:30 p.m. today and 10:30 a.m. Saturday
Cost: Free and open to the public