Hang Right Politics

Posted by Big Mo on February 9th, 2007 in Religion

Tonight and all day tomorrow I’ll be joining youth ministers and adult volunteers from across Missouri and Illinois for a special mission: helping teenagers hold on to, and grow, their faith as they leave high school.

Statistically speaking, half of all Christian high school students will fall away from the faith when they leave high school. I know. I was one of them.

The organization that’s putting on this weekend event is called Dare2Share. Their mission is a simple one, yet extremely bold in today’s culture: teaching teens how to share their faith with their peers, without fear.

Greg Steir, the founder of D2S, says this on his site:

It’s hard to believe that somewhere around 9,000 teenagers will be waiting for us at The Scotttrade Center (formerly Saavis Center) in downtown St. Louis. This huge arena that is used to screaming professional hockey fans had better gird itself up and prepare for the loud crowds of Dare 2 Share. These teens won’t be buying any beer at your concession stands (or had better not be anyway!) but they will be full of the Spirit and teen adrenalin…and did I mention that they will be loud?

Thank you Lord and thank all of you who have been attending Dare 2 Share for so many years in St Louis!

I am humbled and grateful. Not because of the big numbers. But because each of those 9,000 or so teens represents a potential changed life.

Why am I so thankful? Because each one of the teenagers who will be there this weekend carries huge potential in them and with them as they yield to the Holy Spirit. Dr. John Maxwell says that even the shyest of people will influence ten thousand others over the course of their lifetime.

Do the math on that: 9,000 teens X 10,000 people = 90 million people potentially being impacted by these teens over the course of their lifetimes.

Pray with me that God uses the conference this weekend to energize and equip these teenagers to make a powerful difference in their friends’ lives, their campuses and communities. Pray that the impact of this training weekend ripples out all across the nation.

The arch in St. Louis has been nicknamed “The Gateway to the West”. May it be the gospel gateway to the north, south, east and west as these 9,000 or so teens go far and wide and high and low with the good news of Jesus ringing forth from their lives and their lips!

We could use your prayers this weekend. The teens in this crowd are tomorrow’s leaders in business, the church, politics, science, education, the military, etc.

This is the third time I’ve taken teens to a D2S conference. Although I wanted to take more, I pray that the Holy Spirit will move their hearts–and mine–and the Scottrade Center will be rocking like never before tonight.