Big Time!

It’s 9:30 Wednesday night and I’m sitting in my study following the Grand Opening of our new $3 million Millennium Youth Center. Oh, man, it was big time! We had 550 teens here, the placed looked awesome, Chris and the worship team were in top form and Pastor Shea preached a fantastic prophetic message on what’s to come in MYC and then gave a great altar call with lots of kids responding for salvation. Peri and I took the stage at the very end and exhorted and encouraged our youth for a few moments before turning them loose into the parking lot where a truck load of pizza awaited them.

What a great grand opening of a place dedicated to nothing less than full-on youth revival!

I believe we are seeing the beginning of a big time move of God among young people here at Word of Life. And I know how God can move among young people. I’m a product of the last major move of God among young people in America — the Jesus Movement of the 1970’s. I got saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, called to the ministry and received a vision to build a church…all in my teens. In some ways Word of Life Church is the fruit of seeds that were sown in my heart when I was a teenager.

The youth culture is the front lines in the contemporary culture war that is the battle for the soul of a nation. Youth are combustible, they are highly flammable. They can be set on fire for sin or they can be set on fire for God.

Some may think that the hope of revival among young people in the 21st Century is a lost cause, but I know better.

I keep two old issues of Time magazine in my study:

The famous Is God Dead? issue from April 1966 that suggested God had become irrelevant in American culture.

And…

The Jesus Revolution issue of June 1971 that documented the astounding spiritual awakening among young people in America.

I dare to believe that God is going to do it again and that we are going to be right in the middle of new move of God among American young people…big time!

BZ