YOUTH is emphasized too much, verbally and otherwise. This separates them from the adult world, and the generation gap widens. New planning is needed, and work, to involve them in the real purpose of the church--not busy work or a recreation program to keep them "out of trouble."
Some act as though the needs of youth are basically different from the needs of other people. If there is a difference, it is that they need more attention during their years of decision, facing questions such as:
Can the religion of my parents become my religion?
What will I do for a lifework? What about a life companion?
Attention
Notice must not be confused with attention. Much notice is given to young people today; too much of it is strictly negative. The bulk of time and work involved in developing a meaningful youth program is in prayerful preparation of activity that will help them experience a bite-sized segment of the gospel commission.
For instance: The student missionary program is an example of students taking responsible action. More recently ACT (Adventist Collegiate Taskforce) and other inner-city evangelism projects have offered them challenge.
More of a challenge is needed for a high school or college student than to take up the offering or provide the special music in some meeting.
Ministers are needed who are willing to offer a behind-the-scenes role of support and encouragement to prepare the youth to offer a ministry to their peers! These opportunities should be given to students who show positive evidence of having a basic conversion experience. They should become the leadership core for youth.
Developing Spiritual Leadership
This involves personal acquaintance in their homes, your home, on campus, in the office, in recreation situations, to know personally your youth and to discover who are the spiritual leaders.
After determining the spiritual leadership, there is need for instilling a sense of mission. It was not until I personally interviewed a major segment of the students in one of our day academies that I realized the extent of the immediate mission field. Only one in twelve interviewed could say they had made a definite commitment of their lives to the Lord Jesus. It is a naive assumption that students in Seventh-day Adventist schools are grounded in the faith. I suggest you take a sampling among your youth.
A Sense of Mission
This can come in several ways. In one day school it started with a prayer break fast in a home simply because no time or place in the school program was available.
Target, teens were chosen and became the object of special prayer from week to week. As they continued to meet, these students developed an idea of sending preaching teams into the churches. Along with this idea grew a need for student counselors to offer a more personal minis try to the youth who were responding to the appeals.
The program is based on this five-point outline:
1. Choose one target.
2. Earn the right to be heard.
3. Wait for the green light.
4. Have something to say.
5. Follow up.
This team went from church to church in an extremely effective thrust for our "own" youth. Concurrently a small chorus group was initiated in a community home. It included spiritual leaders along with uncommitted young people. This created another level of involvement and another mission field! (Careful of the music here!)
This illustrates the direction one group went in search of a mission. These were not my ideas superimposed upon them, but rather a natural outgrowth of the weekly prayer-discussion sessions.
The youth were involved in the initial planning, in fervent prayer and in actually carrying out the plans.
ACT---Adventist Collegiate Taskforce--- is a youth-initiated concept of outreach that was started at La Sierra campus of Loma Linda University by Monte Sahlin and other students in the .spring and summer of 1967. During the summer of 1968 nine students from Pacific Union College got into the ACT in inner-city projects in the San Francisco Bay area. They were awarded scholarships provided from several sources. Food and lodging were provided by the local churches. The supplies to operate their summer day camps and Bible study materials were provided by their own initiative, prayer, and persistence.
For example: An empty store building normally renting for S375 a month, in the mission district of San Francisco, was provided through the influence of a Catholic woman who had heard of their plans. She took it upon herself to persuade the owner to offer it at no cost for the ten-week project. He also included lights and water. This building was used for a day camp, which included crafts, stories, songs, and some indoor games. Another Catholic organization provided them with a refrigerator to cool refreshments, which were also donated by local businessmen for the children six to fourteen years of age who attended the camp. The average daily attendance was forty-five, with nearly as many Bible studies begun in the homes of the parents.
Another team of four young men, two black and two white, an integrated team in a totally Negro community, conducted two day camps daily, one in East Oakland and another in Berkeley. These were attended by boys aged six to twelve. Fifty Bible studies were initiated in their program.
Volunteer camp at Angwin was conducted by a group of college students under the direction of LaMont Potter, also a student. A doctor who lived in the college vicinity donated the use of his land. Tents, food, and other supplies were donated by community people in the vicinity of Pacific Union College. Three young women from the college did the preparing of meals. Twenty boys from east Oakland enjoyed the seven-day camp as a conclusion of their summer project.
Two other fellows worked door to door with a survey and carried on a large number of studies in the homes of the people in south San Francisco. Local pastors shepherded these teams and I visited them on a weekly basis from my position here at the college to offer guidance in their decisions and plans.
I do not feel that new ideas and sensational approaches are the last word in youth work, although some new approaches are needed to recapture the imaginations and hearts of our youth in giving them a genuine challenge. Most youth have not discovered that "it can't be done."
Success in work for youth comes with a high price tag it costs long hours of patient, personal guidance, attention and prayer. But the dividends offer even higher rewards. When one of "your" young men leads someone to a decision for the Lord, and you sense the depth of joy it has brought to him, you will never be the same again.
I recommend to you the greatest ad venture leading Adventist youth into bite-sized experiences of soul winning. The gospel can be carried to the world IN THIS GENERATION!
