"Youth"
1/20/04
Why a column on the "Youth?" Because it is the area of society and the direction which the Lord spoke to me about ministering to/in. Over a period of fifty years the Lord has continued to speak to me about a ministry in the future. I thought that ministry would develop at age twenty-five, then thirty-five, surely by forty-five. Then when fifty rolled around I knew that I had misunderstood what the Lord had been saying to me. Through the years I have repeatedly set the impressions aside, concluding that I had misinterpreted the voice of the Lord and the impression within my heart. However, neither the voice, nor the impressions stopped. The month that I turned 65, the Lord spoke to my heart that the ministry which I had looked for over the years was now to happen. I was able to receive that part of the message with some comfort, but when He told me whom the ministry was to be directed toward my heart sank. Surely, I had not heard Him right. Yet, His voice was clear. The ministry was to the youth. At age sixty-five, retirement age, I had many question as to how I could touch the youth. It surely could not be in a physical way. Yet, in that first year, I found myself playing softball with the youth. I also discovered at the same time that the Lord was calling others into a youth ministry. And all were near the retirement age.
So that is why there is a "Youth" column. There are three things which I feel that I should report on in this column: (1) Where youth are in our society today. (2) What the hand of the Lord is doing amongst and with the youth today. (3) And, what the Lord is saying to my heart about "why" there should be an emphasis today on reaching the youth.
I will not get it all said in one column, and especially the first column. However, as I have stated in others articles on this website, I have to start somewhere. So, this is where I start.
In reference to the first question, I have read several articles of late in which professors in college level education have stated that a change in attitudes and perception of life on the part of youth began to show up in the classroom at a specific time. The year was 2000. And the change has remained. The professors stated that the generation coming into the classroom in year 2002 was a different generation than that of the ’90’s.
In reference to the second question. At the same time that the generation change began to show up amongst the youth, there was a sudden flaring up of youth ministry across this land to reach out to the youth in mass numbers. The number of youth that are being dealt with in those ministries are up in the 100,000s.
When the Spirit of the Lord begins to make a move, you can count on Satan and the spirit of the world to make a move to counter act it. And this is what has happened. In the political arena large sums of money are being invested to reach the youth for a political agenda. One individual alone has stated that they will invest 30 million dollars into the effort for their specific agenda. Neither have the business and advertizing firms been left out in their efforts to reach the youth.
It is time for the church to act! And in reference to the third question, the Lord has spoken to my heart about the "why" of it all. The adult generations in the church from the ages of about 30 to 80 have failed to do His work of evangelizing the United States. Probably of the world, but He has kept my focus on the United States. It is the same old story of Israel all over again. It was the children, and especially the unborn children, at Kadesh Barnea that became the generation that went in and took the promise land. The Lord is raising up a new generation to do what a previous generation refuse to do under His leadership.