“To Be Continued…” This was the theme of this year’s North American Youth Congress, the largest gathering of teens and twenty somethings in the United States, and a powerful time of Spiritual renewal, empowerment, and inspiration. We heard powerful messages from Joel Urshan, Brent Keating, and Todd Gaddy, along with day sessions by Loida Howell, Jeffrey Goodman, Danny Rivers, and many others in the split sessions, all under the leadership of Todd Gaddy, Shay Mann, and Wayne Francis of the General Youth division of the UPCI. Youth Congress is something for which I will spare no cost or time to get myself to. I will do whatever it takes to get there. And when I get there, I want to get as much from God as I possibly can. If you’ve never been there, and you’re eligible to go, I encourage you to do put aside money now, it’s actually not that much, plan to keep the date open, and do whatever it takes to get there, because your life will be dramatically changed for the best!
Every year that youth congress is held (every other year) they have a different theme. As I said, this year’s was “To be continued…” 17,000+ Apostolic young people were encouraged and equipped throughout the course of this three day period to keep the fire burning, to take the revival home with them, to go and reach our world. So often, we go to camps, and youth retreats, and rallies and we worship and praise, and clap our hands, and go nuts, and get fired up and come back home and let it all wear off. This week at NAYC the general chord I saw that resonated throughout all the messages is that we need to get the church outside the four walls and take it to the lost. We need to get our egos out of the equation. We need to be full of the Holy Ghost and have the heart of God beating inside of us.
We all heard these words and we got excited and we got onboard, but so that we don’t settle down and that we do let the movement continue in our church and our city, I want to offer my thoughts and encouragement.
The reason we often lose the fire, is because we hear other people’s success stories, and the things other churches have accomplished, and we come home and we want to do the exact same thing they’re doing, because it worked for them, and we want something that will work for us. The mistake there, is that they’ve probably been doing that for months or even years. We don’t see the inception of their idea or work. If we want to feed the homeless, we can’t start by giving away 2000 free meals. It would be better to start out closer to 100 or whatever your can afford. Another thing is that different cities have different needs, and what works in one city could flop in another. Rochester doesn’t have nearly as large a homeless presence as other big cities in our world, and we’ve already got things like Salvation Army and Channel One who help these people, so such a ministry would not go as far here as other places. However, we do have many in the Mayo clinic and St. Mary’s Hospital that we can help. There are people in nursing homes who are lonely, and young children and teenagers who just need a friend. That is our harvest field. That is where our church and our youth group can and should organize an outreach to get into. Your city has a unique need, and your church has an opportunity and a calling to figure out what that is and to just do something to effect that. You don’t have to start big, you don’t have to see converts in the first week, and you don’t have to force-feed anybody our doctrine. Just give. Just help. Just act.
That’s my personal committment, which I want to share with you. I am going to do my best to just serve people in any way that I can. If it’s just a smile, if it’s just buying some hungry person a meal, if it’s just keeping someone company. When they start asking about my church, I’ll tell them. When they are ready for a Bible study, I’ll give it to them. And it won’t be so scary then, because by that time, they’ll be my friend and I’ll be able to be myself around them and talk freely about whatever. I’m going to need your help. We’re all going to need each other’s help and prayers. We cannot reach our world alone. We are all members of one body. Don’t discourage me, I won’t discourage you. I’d love to pray for you. I’d love to let you bounce your ideas off me. I’d love to help you in any way I can, and I hope we all have the same attitude towards one another in our churches. And remember that whatever you do, make sure you run it by your pastor. He’s probably been there, done that, and learned many lessons that he can pass on to you. And it would probably make his day to hear from you just how much you want to do something to reach out. It would thrill any pastor with a burden for the lost.
I’m not sure how much of what I wanted to say I actually said, but I’m going to stop here. To sum up everything that I said I’ll just reiterate this to you, “Start small, and keep the faith, don’t lose the fire. If you already have something going, take it to the next level.” Some things that are sure to keep the fire burning are these: a consistent prayer and devotional life, Bible reading, reminding yourself of your vision every day, claiming God’s promises of ultimate success no matter how dark it gets. And it is important and helpful to team up with someone who shares your vision, because you keep each other going, you encourage each other, you can work together and get more done. By doing this, and keeping God in the middle of everything, we can be sure that the moments we had at Youth Congress become a perpetual movement that is sure To Be Continued…
Nice review of NAYC 2007!
I thought I would add this to the “Review”… It’s not the best video, but you will get the idea.
For those of you who may have missed the comedic talent of Jeremy Foster Friday morning, or if you just want to see him again, he has his own website at www.jeremyfoster.org and you can see some of the other stuff he does.