The Life Book Movement

As I’ve stepped back into the role of Youth Pastor in a local church I am constantly looking for resources that will help my students take the Gospel to their campuses. That’s one of the reasons I love Dare 2 Share so much. Their conferences, curriculum and resources are committed to equipping teenagers to reach their generation with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I recently came across another resource that I cannot wait to use within our Student Ministry.

A few months ago I saw several Facebook updates from Youth Leader friends asking if other Youth Leaders were doing a “saturation,” ordering “Life Books,” or joining “the Life Book Movement.” I was intrigued as their comments all had evangelistic implications. As I did a little research I came across the Life Book Movements website: http://www.thelifebook.com. I was extremely excited by what I found.

The Life Book Movement, founded by The Gideons International, is a ministry dedicating to putting the Gospel of John into the hands of every teenager on every High School campus in America. As of this fall their website reports nearly 1.7 million Life Books have been distributed. That’s a fantastic start for this relatively young ministry. Considering there are approximately 17.5 million teenagers attending High School in America, we still have our work cut out for us as we are only 10% of the way there. This is where you and I can get involved with our ministries.

Go to their website and sign up for a Saturation. “A Saturation is a short-term mission trip by your student to their high schools to hand out The Life Book to their classmates.”

I was hoping to have our students participate in a Saturation this past fall as part of a series we did called, Campus: we will take this house, that also tied in with See You At the Pole (http://www.syatp.com/). We didn’t want SYATP to feel like some random event we had put on the calendar for the fall so we built this series around it. The focus of the series was equipping teens to live and give the Gospel on their campuses. It was great to see our students respond to the series as teens from our Student Ministry led the charge on every Middle School and High School that is represented in our ministry. The vision was to put The Life Book into the hands of all teenagers leading up to SYATP so that they could share the Gospel, invite their friends to SYATP, and then invite them to church.

Due to such a high demand of The Life Book they had already distributed all of the books they had printed for the fall of 2011. However, I am getting ready to order The Life Book this winter so we can participate in a Saturation in the spring of 2012. I have also marked it on my calendar for next summer to order books so we can be prepared for another Saturation in the fall and tie it into See You At the Pole next September. This is an innovative way to get the Gospel to every student on every High School campus in America!

In addition to Dare 2 Share, The Life Book Movement, and See You At the Pole, what are some other evangelistically focused ministries and resources that you use to equip your teens to take the Gospel to their campuses?