The Greg Stier Youth ministry Podcast

0:04:00.1 GS: Amen.

0:04:00.4 BF: Yeah, Greg, I think we’ve all tried to come up with an idea and then go back and sell it to our student ministry, and sometimes it’s okay, sometimes it’s not. But how great is it when the students come up with those kind of things? Let’s go do this. And they come back, and man, you get participation like crazy, and it’s like, whatever it takes, we are in. And so they wanna do that.

0:04:24.8 GS: Yeah, they become activated. They become activists for the gospel of Christ. And I think youth ministry is stuck, and the church at large is stuck in this come and see approach. Come to our Easter service. Come to our Christmas service. Come to our game night. Come to our pizza night. Come to our whatever night. Come to our retreat. There you can hear the gospel. And come and see is good. We need students who know how to invite their friends to come and see, right? To come and experience, to come and hear the gospel in a youth group setting.

0:05:00.2 GS: But what I’m realizing more and more is for every one student that will come and see, there’s 99 who won’t and who don’t. So who’s gonna reach them? We can’t just come and see with them. We have to go and get. We have to go and tell. We have to mobilize our students to reach out to their friends with the gospel. And I’m gonna ask this question. How does that type of evangelism where students are sharing the gospel, how does that accelerate the discipleship process in the hearts of the Christian student?

0:05:38.6 ST: Well, I think it just gives them confidence to know that they can be used right now where they’re at. We always hear this, oh, the youth are the future of the church. I say the youth are the future of the church, but they’re also the present of the church as well.

0:05:52.8 GS: Yes.

0:05:53.7 ST: And so when they get the confidence to be able to share the gospel with others, to be in gospel conversations, to pray for their Cause Circle, all those different things, it puts them into the game right now. And it causes them to be like, “oh, wait, if I’m going to be sharing this with others, I should live it out. And so I should be making a difference.” And for students to have their friends look at them and say, “Hey, there’s something different about you. What is that?”

0:06:24.7 GS: Yeah.

0:06:25.3 ST: And then being able to get into those conversations and be able to think about how can I use these different places that God’s placed me in, whether it’s on a sports team, band, whatever it might be. What locker I’m next to, and being able to have that accelerate their faith and really grow.

0:06:46.3 GS: So before we get some other answers, you used the term Cause Circle. We want to make sure we’re not, this is not just secret evangelism ninja conversation between us.

0:07:00.9 ST: [laughter] Yeah.

0:07:01.0 GS: What is a Cause Circle? And what does it have to do with your shirts? ‘Cause three of you are wearing Cause Circle shirts. Explain that.

0:07:08.2 ST: Yeah. Cause Circle is simply who are… Three friends that do not know who Jesus is. Don’t have a relationship with Jesus, friends, neighbors, family members, whoever that might be in their life that they have relationship with. And you begin to pray for them and then you pray for their salvation. And then the care part on our shirt which you can’t see it’s all the way down at the bottom here, is you look for ways that you can show care towards those friends in order to get into a conversation. And then the share would be being able to share the gospel, get into a spiritual conversation and eventually to sharing the gospel. And Hey, by the way, a good app to use for that is a Life in 6 Words app. Again, that can totally walk you through that. I think there to share has something to do with that, right?

0:07:58.0 GS: Yeah. Yeah.

0:08:00.0 ST: Did I miss anything. Did I miss anything from that? You guys.

0:08:01.8 GS: No. Well, one thing is it’s cool because as I look at guys’s shirts, I mean, I did not get the memo. I wish I got the memo. But it’s a circle and there’s an arrow, prayer care share. So once they trust Christ and they begin to prayer care and share with their friends. So love that concept. Eric, Mr. Bill, any other thoughts on how evangelism accelerates the discipleship process?

0:08:31.2 EG: I think from my experience, I’ve seen students who, when they are engaged in sharing the gospel, they have a deeper ownership of their faith.

0:08:39.4 GS: Yeah.

0:08:40.9 EG: It goes from just a concept to a conviction. And a conviction that they’re now more embedded and they’re more invested in what it is that they believe. It’s not just, something their mom and dad told them to believe or their youth leader or their pastor, but it’s truly something that they’ve had to process in their own mind and their own hearts. And they verbalize that out to their friends. There’s significant ownership of that. And they now have a better confidence in what it is that they believe, and to stand on. So in my experience, not only do they have the confidence, but they have a deeper sense of ownership than those who just kind of receive it on a Sunday or a Wednesday in the church setting.

0:09:26.3 GS: That’s good. They’re no longer spectators. They’re participants.

0:09:28.4 BF: Yap.

0:09:29.8 GS: That’s great.

0:09:29.8 BF: Yeah.

0:09:30.9 GS: I love it.

0:09:31.7 BF: The words of a local football coach is personal. It becomes personal. And honestly, you guys know that, the greatest way to play…

[overlapping conversation]

0:09:41.7 GS: Hold on. You said local football coach Neon Deion, Coach Prime?

0:09:43.8 BF: Yes. It is. It’s prime.

0:09:46.6 GS: There you go. It’s personal.

0:09:47.9 BF: Okay. It’s personal. Anyway, but I’m just saying the greatest way to grow in your faith is start sharing it. Because then you come back and you’re going, I don’t know some of these answers and you start growing and learning some of those things. And it just becomes real practical. I think it was normal for the early believers to be sharing their faith.

0:10:09.1 GS: Yeah.

0:10:10.2 BF: I mean, you read scripture, they had to tell people to stop talking about Jesus. And today we have to help people to start talking about Jesus.

0:10:19.5 GS: Yeah. My friend, Dave Gibson said, the only thing you had to do with the early believer is take their hand away from their mouth. ‘Cause they would just start talking about Jesus. And that was normal. It was normal, the normal Christian life. That’s what we want with our students. What does an activated evangelistically activated student look like? What are some of the characteristics?

0:10:45.1 ST: Well, I think we’ve touched on it. They’re actively praying for their Cause Circle, being able to pray for those friends. I think also too, one of the things that our students were encouraged with by going Lead THE Cause this summer and looking at Daniel and we launched out the cause cruise of getting together with two or three of your other friends.

[overlapping conversation]

0:11:05.3 GS: Hey, hold on. You have to define, let’s define the secret ninja evangelism talk. What’s the Lead THE Cause and what’s the cause group?

0:11:13.8 ST: Lead THE Cause. I mean, it’s camp with a purpose, putting students into, training and what it means to prayer, care, share and there at the end of the week. And then being able to put it in practice that afternoon and evening. And, if you are looking for something next summer, you definitely need to check out, Lead THE Cause. And then the cause crew is simply getting together with three other friends that are praying for their three friends. And now you’re praying for nine people. And, guess what? When you pray for lost people, you start to see lost people and God gives you opportunities. And so you’re gonna be able to put that into practice right away. Or you could just, do like some other people are doing like, I don’t know if this is the opportunity that God’s given me, or you miss out on those, but then you realize, Oh, wow, if I pray for my friends, God is actually gonna give me those opportunities. And so, that’s Cause Circle and, or cause crew with Lead THE Cause.

0:12:23.5 GS: Yeah. So you’ve got a lot of causes going on. So you’ve got Lead THE Cause, which is all week event. Cause Circle, which are the once your students are seeking to reach in the cause crew. That’s the crew of believers that they’re going together for, to get activated for evangelism. So it’s great. Other thoughts, Eric or Mr. Bill?

0:12:41.7 BF: You might wanna define what the cause is. We say the cause is the cause of Christ to go and make disciples. And so, I know we talked about…

0:12:53.8 GS: Normally known as The Great Commission.

0:12:54.2 BF: Yeah.

0:12:54.5 GS: Okay. We call it the cause.

0:12:54.5 BF: Right. But sometimes our students are like, “What’s a The Great Commission. Is that like money I made on a deal?”

0:13:02.3 EG: Yeah. That’s right.

0:13:03.3 BF: And I’m like, that’s not what it is at all. It’s that’s not anyway. Hey, so I grew up on a farm and so my dad never sat me down and taught me how to fix the plow. He never sat me down and taught me how to, mow the lawn. He never said, he did that actively by showing me, he took me and we did it. And I learned that way. I never sat down. I never had a lesson from my dad on anything I learned, but I can fix all kinds of things and stuff. Because he just showed me, he just, I just watched him and he showed me. And I think we have to get students activated that way. We have to show them. We have to take them out. If we’re gonna talk about prayer, let’s go out and pray.

0:13:46.5 BF: If we’re gonna talk about caring for people, let’s go out and care for them. If we’re gonna talk about sharing the gospel, we get out and share the gospel. As you do that, our students are ready to do that. They’re not into sitting and learning near as much as… I remember when I first started, I could teach for an hour, a Bible study for an hour without any breaks. And our students were attentive and stuff, but that was 30 years ago. And things have changed and what they are interested in though, is getting out and doing things. They’re a cause kind of people. And so we have to mobilize them.

0:14:23.4 GS: Yeah. Amen. Amen. When you evangelize and you’re willing to make that risk, it accelerates the discipleship process ’cause the core call of Jesus for discipleship is pick up your cross, die to yourself, follow me. That first death is not a physical death. It’s a social death that comes from evangelism. So these kids are risking a social death when they declare the cross of Christ that they’re caring to their friends. And so that’s powerful. So what are some first steps? Like if a youth leader is listening to this and they’re like, okay, how do I get this started? Because my concept of outreach has always been come to the pizza party, come to game night, come to youth group, that special outreach, whatever, they all nighter, whatever. So the gospel can be given. I’ve not really thought about getting my kids mobilized for the gospel. What are some first steps they can do?

0:15:19.3 ST: Well, what you want replicated, you need to be intentional about and actually program it. So, a couple of years ago we started or even before that, Dare 2 Share Live. When that started going, we did that once a year, but in the last few couple of years, we’ve been programming, Go Share Days and simply getting people to come, getting students to come. We do it, with a lunch. We like to include the gospel bird in that. And so a defining part of that is that’s a Chick-fil-A sandwich. That is the gospel bird for us. And we eat lunch together. We train through, how to have gospel conversations. We practice with each other. And then we go out and do it.

0:16:00.2 ST: So you need a program, different things where you call your students to go and do that. And, we even took, something from Lead THE Cause, ’cause with Lead THE Cause, you have a prayer day, a care day, and a share day. And we’ve even used that for our Go Share Days now of rotating those different months where we focus on prayer for one of them and might go out and pray around different schools, or go out to different places where we can pray with people. Another day for the care day, we’ll do something where we express care to people. And so being able to program it that way, then makes it…

0:16:39.3 GS: Kind of lost you though, Scott. Alright.

0:16:40.1 ST: More able for students to do those types of things.

0:16:44.5 GS: So what you just witnessed, if you’re watching this is Eric Groezinger had a sudden background transformation through the magic of technology. So.

0:16:57.6 EG: Incredible.

0:16:58.8 GS: Hey, so Scott, you’ve been talking about Go Share Day, Dare 2 Share Live. I just wanna make sure that we define that. So Go Share Day last Saturday of every month, we challenge youth leaders around the world to take their groups out to share the gospel, to give them a monthly outreach opportunity, to go out and you say you train them, equip them, you guys have Chick-fil-A and then you mobilize them for the gospel, right? So that’s Go Share Day, Mr. Bill, Eric, you guys have any thoughts about mobilizing your teams on a consistent basis to give them an outreach opportunity?

0:17:38.9 EG: I’m with Scott. We’re in the process of launching our Go Share Days as well. Really it’s kind of, it’s very much been student driven and Lead THE Cause this past summer only added more fuel to that fire.

0:17:50.7 GS: Yeah.

0:17:53.2 EG: And so super excited to kind of see it launch, but our students don’t want it to just be our group. And so we’re actually extending the invite to other youth groups in our town, in our city to join us. Both as a peer to peer thing, but also as a way to kind of train and equip other student ministries in our city and to help spread that gospel advancing movement, both to the students, but also to the youth leaders. So…

0:18:19.8 GS: Love it.

0:18:20.3 EG: I think Go Share Day, that last Saturday of every month, whatever it looks like in your community and in your context, it’s just a very easy, natural, quick way to just build it into the rhythm of your student ministry every month.

0:18:33.0 GS: Yeah. Love it. And I know, you know, like I was thinking about Stephen Bahago in Nigeria that takes kids out the last Saturday of every month with Go Share Day. I mean, they’re literally risking their lives to go out. Nigeria’s the most persecuted country in the world, and they’re on it. They’re like, let’s go. And youth groups around the world and it’s just great to see you guys doing that as well. Mr. Bill, before we started recording, you were telling me about gonna Go Share Day. You guys did it earlier in the month. But that’s something you guys have in your rhythm on a consistent basis as mobilizing students for the gospel. How does that help your students become fluent at sharing Christ?

0:19:14.3 BF: So, I’ll speak to those who maybe have never done this before. Because like Eric and Scott, they’ve been at their churches for a while and established some rhythms of that way. And we’re beginning to try to establish those rhythms.

0:19:28.6 GS: Yap.

0:19:29.3 BF: And I know youth leaders, it’s hard. I mean, there’ll be pushback. There’ll be like, our students aren’t ready. Or there may be like the time I was chairing about our last go share day, we had two students. That’s it. But you know what? We go with it. You go for it. And… But you’re establishing rhythms and it’s a great way to do it. And you know what? Here’s how you make that better, is what we did is we had those students that go share the next time we have student ministry, which is the next day for us.

0:20:09.5 BF: ‘Cause we are a Sunday ministry. So that Sunday we had students share what went on and they share about opportunities they had, and that encourages other students. Okay? We started doing a pause for the cause on Sunday nights, which means we take five minutes right before I give the message and say, “Hey, has anybody had an opportunity to share the gospel with a friend?” And we… I didn’t know what kind of response we get. It’s the first time we did this. But I’m committed to evangelism and reaching the lost, and the students are catching on with that. And so I just planned it. So I stopped, we had two students share the first week, and one of them was a middle school girl about her dad that she’s praying for.

0:20:57.6 GS: Oh, wow.

0:20:58.6 BF: And had a conversation with her dad about the gospel.

0:21:02.2 GS: Love it.

0:21:03.8 BF: So I mean, I’m just sitting there going, wow, what a great big step for her. And her dad said,” You know, thank you, I’m not there yet, but I’d love to hear more.” And then the second week we had one person, and the third week we had two again. So we’re beginning to see this as part of our rhythm of doing that. But for those of you who may say, man, I don’t think we can do that. You know what, just go for it. You lead, you’re a youth leader. One of the things I learned is that I’m not a rancher. My job is not to drive students. I’m a shepherd. My job is to lead them. So in those things I lead and I shared each of those weeks opportunities, I had that week to share the gospel as well. So they see that this is not just them, but it’s a lifestyle. And I’m trying to live that too. But I’m just trying to encourage those that may just be thinking, I don’t know if I can do this. Go for it. Lead. Let them see how you’re doing. And I think it’d be awesome.

0:22:05.0 GS: Well, and you know, men, this is great. We do have an annual kind of a trigger event that helps accelerate all the Go Share days. We used to do large conferences at Dare 2 Share. We used to travel the nation and we’d train in arenas across the United States and large churches, how to share the gospel. Mobilizing students is great Dare 2 share conferences for 25 years. But the last seven years we’ve done Dare 2 Share Live, which has been a life simulcast. Last year we had a 1,000 churches participate in English and 900 in Spanish. And it was the first year for Spanish. So I was like, man, first year they’re catching up. Like already the Spanish churches are like, we’re gonna overtake the English. And there’s this multiplying the gospel out.

0:23:01.4 GS: It’s awesome to see. This year for the first time, we’re doing Dare 2 Share Live actually prerecorded, which sounds kind of weird ’cause it’s Dare 2 Share Live. But what hit me when I was in Africa was these students can’t do a Live United States based event. It’d be a midnight outreach. So we said, well, let’s make what’s live as the movement, not the event. And we just prerecorded Dare 2 Share Live last week in English and Spanish here at a television studio in Denver and brought in the Spanish team, English speaking team. I’m telling you, man, I think it’s gonna be the best one yet. By God’s grace. The Spanish team killed it. The English team killed it. The drama is gonna be powerful based on the reality of hell and the urgency of the evangelism based on an old drama I wrote called Letters From Hell.

0:23:55.8 GS: Because this one’s called Message From Hell and pretty intense and very compelling. But Dare 2 share live part of this with what’s great it’s all pre-done. So we do the inspiration, we do the training. We send the students out to share the gospel with their youth leaders and then they put a hashtag in #D2Slive. And you’re able to see on our life in Six Words app conversations. This year it’ll be from all around the world of teenagers. We already have, like, as of now, we have 600 ish churches signed up and like 50 plus countries, which is amazing. And so we’re praying for thousands of churches and so many countries. Let’s reach them all. But I want these youth leaders to hear from you as youth leaders, how Dare 2 Share Live has kind of been that acceleration point for Go share Day and advance throughout the year. Obviously you got Lead THE Cause in the summer, but Dare 2 share Live this free, amazing community-wide event that you can do in your own church. Just talk a little bit about Dare 2 Share Live.

0:25:12.4 ST: Yeah. We’ve been doing it, what is it, five years now or whatever it started. We opened up our church and host it here for any other youth groups around our area. ’cause we’re gonna do it anyway. The interesting thing is, I have yet to have any groups from my own town come to it. It’s usually about 45 minutes to an hour away, but we’re doing it anyway. We’ve made it into a retreat now, where we go away and we partner with a church just down the road from us about 40 minutes away. And so for us, it gets us going to, once students experience going out and being trained and getting in gospel conversations, then they’re more willing to go to a Go Share day.

0:26:02.6 GS: Yeah.

0:26:03.6 ST: Or this year we’re also gonna be doing something instead of doing an extra Saturday, is that we are gonna program it into our weekly Sunday night program. So in between each different series, students are coming up with a way that they could have an outreach night where they share testimonies and share the gospel and have gospel conversations. So that’s a way that you can program it right into your regular rhythm.

0:26:29.1 EG: Yeah. We started it as well back when the live started and have opened up our doors and invited other youth groups to come into it. And what it’s done for us, it’s really brought, I think a common language to what we’re trying to teach in our lower level in our student ministry area. And our students are starting to pick up on the prayer care share model and what is a Cause Circle and what is my crew, what is the G-O-S-P-E-L and really giving them some very easy handholds on how they can express the gospel. Having that app the last few years has been really significant in giving them more confidence when they go to share the gospel. And those, the conversation starters, the videos that they can just text that to their friend during the event and hearing some of those conversations that day or the next Monday when they go back to school, have been really significant.

0:27:27.8 EG: But it’s also been a tool I feel that has brought our network together here in our city. When we’ve had other youth groups to join us, I really go after those youth leaders and say, “Man, we’re in this together. One team, one dream. So let’s go and let’s meet together on a regular basis and let’s start this Gospel Meeting Network.”

0:27:50.1 GS: That’s awesome.

0:27:51.6 EG: Our city is big enough that we cannot reach it on our own. We need each other and our students are strategically placed. So let’s use this event as a rally poll to launch. But I would say the other area that Dare 2 Share Live has really surprised me in some regards is to see how our church body as a whole has really come around the priority of evangelism and giving them an awareness of what our students are doing.

0:28:19.1 EG: We recruit a lot of adult volunteers to pull off our event. And I encourage them to sit in on the training and to sit in on the outreach and to be a part of what we’re doing. And the stories that I’m hearing their eyes are open of seeing what our students are capable of and the boldness that they have to share their faith. That I think is an inspiration to our adults sitting in the pew. That is, they’re starting to turn their heads. And know that we’re not just about fun games in student ministry, but we’re actually about training them to be disciple makers. And that starts with evangelism and they’re doing it. We have a lot of fun doing it, but we’re doing it. And so we’re starting to see that ripple go out from the lower level up into the upper sanctuary, which is really encouraging.

0:29:09.4 GS: I love that. And I’ve never thought about that. Like the power of inviting adults to volunteer at Dare 2 share live to create church-wide alignment for the gospel, not just in the youth ministry, but in their own lives. Good stuff. And creating that network of youth leaders that are passionate about the gospel in your own city.

0:29:31.0 EG: That’s right.

0:29:31.4 GS: So Mr. Bill, what do you think?

0:29:33.2 BF: Yeah, so new church, and so I’m trying to catch up with these guys. They’ve been doing live, like this and doing a great job. I’ve actually went to Eric’s one year while I was in Minnesota that year, and it was awesome. That was the year they had the big storm and we helped clean up yards and oh my goodness, great, great outreach that day. Anyway, all that to say is for us, I just thought, okay, we’re gonna do this. So I got a hold of our, some local youth pastors that I know, Morgan and Matt at Storyline, and then Ben at Revive. And so we’re gonna do it a Friday night, Saturday. So it’s gonna be Friday night at revive. Saturday morning we’re all meeting at Storyline. And then after the outreach we’re wrapping up at Faith. And so it’s gonna be… And I’m… Here’s what I’m excited about is my students are gonna get to see that this isn’t a Mr. Bill Faith kind of thing.

0:30:29.3 BF: This is a God thing. And other ministries in our area are part of this too. And I really think it’s gonna be a launching pad to getting my students to be a part of doing that locally themselves and their own, sharing with their friends, but also maybe getting to Lead THE Cause that will help them to really accelerate that as well. There’s just a lot of entry points. And I’m really looking for a big woo-hoo afterwards from Dare 2 Share Live because I think our students are gonna go, “Hey, this isn’t something that Mr. Bill just came up with, you know?”

0:31:03.0 GS: Yeah. To see, I love that. And actually, I think I’m gonna pop into that Dare 2 Share live. I’ve never been on the receiving end of Dare 2 Share Live ’cause it’s always been live. And now I’ll be able to maybe pop in and say, Hey, wasn’t that the speaker up there? I just wanna know what’s going on. [laughter], I wanna see it and experience it myself. So it’ll be a lot of fun. But Dare 2 Share Live is on November 11th. That’s the Global Day of Youth of Evangelism. You can download the videos as of November 6th, but just go to Dare2sharelive.org. Dare2sharelive.org. It’s a free training. And I’m just gonna tell you, man, it is high quality. We invest a lot in making it the best it possibly can be.

0:31:55.3 GS: And so join, I mean, as students think about this, students are gonna be able to watch teenagers around the world on that day and this Global Day of Youth of Evangelism. So yeah, the local network, but really for the first time guys, we’re gonna have a global network.

0:32:07.2 BF: Yeah.

0:32:07.8 GS: Working together for the gospel of Christ. And so I talked to a pastor from India two days ago that told me he’s been using Dare 2 share resources for years in India because they’re free. And he didn’t know about Dare 2 Share Live. And I told him about it, man. I said, get a dare 2 share live, going back in Bangalore, India and mobilize those students. He was so, so excited. So anyways, excited to talk, but you guys are obviously friends. And tell me a little bit about… Just in closing, how does gospel advancing circle of friends, this network of leaders, how have you guys encourage each other over the years? Why is it important that leaders don’t try to do youth ministry on their own, but they have a crew with them to encourage them along the way, especially as they’re seeking to implement this gospel advancing, disciple multiplying mindset?

0:33:06.0 ST: Yeah, we’re definitely a cause crew, the three of us. We’re praying for each other and encouraging each other. But Bill, why don’t you give the OG story on this?

0:33:18.1 BF: Oh, sure. So we met probably 15 years ago, and really we’re a part of in the trenches team, as a group team from Simply Youth Ministry and helped put together those kind of conferences. And we kept our friendships going since then. And then involved in Sun Life together, all three of us as well and all also would Dare 2 Share. But really we just started building a bond and saying, “Hey, you know, let’s begin praying for each other.” We all, we actually got, we were in Florida one year at a Sun Life conference and went to downtown Disney and saw a Marvel store and got our pictures taken as Captain America, Hawkeye and Thor in the poster. And so it was kind of a big deal. So we call ourselves the Avengers. And so we are doing whatever it takes to bring students to Jesus. And so, but we have a…

0:34:19.1 GS: Can I be Iron Man? Can I be Iron Man?

0:34:20.9 BF: Well, I think there’s a call for Ironman, John Burdett [laughter]

0:34:27.1 GS: Oh man.

0:34:27.6 BF: Anyway, we do that and even now our wives have gotten together and started praying for each other. They’re DC so we don’t know what we do with that yet.

[laughter]

0:34:43.5 BF: Anyway, but…

0:34:43.6 EG: Number women.

0:34:45.9 BF: I can tell you. You know, when Jesus went into the garden, Peter, James and John there, and I know they get a bad rap for falling asleep, but they were there, they were as close as buddies. And these are like my garden friends. I can trust them. I know I can share anything with them. I know they’re praying for me. And man, you need that in ministry. We all need… We were never meant to do life alone, let alone ministry alone.

0:35:17.1 ST: These guys were really important to me this last year, I’m going through some health issues this last fall. And as soon as I was in there, I’m in the ICU unit and I’m getting a Zoom call with the Avenger crew praying for me. And so it’s more than just the ministry side of things of student ministry. It is us being there for each other.

0:35:42.1 GS: Yeah. Awesome.

0:35:43.6 ST: So, go ahead Eric. Let you go.

0:35:45.8 EG: Yeah, I’m just gonna underscore that we’ve gone through quite a bit together over those 15 years. We have not only shared ministry successes, we’ve shared ministry struggles, we have shared family celebrations, and we have shared family struggles. We’ve been in each other’s homes and we have swapped stories and just a lot of good stuff that honestly, I wouldn’t be in ministry without these two guys because ministry can be very lonely and these two guys get it. And I look up to them as mentors, as peers who are pouring into me. And I can learn from their successes and their failures. And someone that I wanna aspire to be when I get older. Or maybe as old as Mr. Bill. But I love these guys and I would do anything for them. And, I’m honored to call them brothers in the Lord, and that we can go side by side to do ministry together, for the sake of the gospel and for our students. And so that’s what really excites me about this connection that we have.

0:36:53.8 BF: And Greg as far as gospel advancing, we are all on that page together and we challenge each other in that area. Tons. Okay? And just even ideas wise, we share ideas and we use each other’s ideas and stuff and, man it’s just a great, great thing.

0:37:16.4 GS: I love that. And you guys are a great example for youth leaders. Don’t do this alone. You need a crew. Yeah, local network, but also, I mean, you guys are in different parts of the country and you can network that way through technology. And man, just common mission, encouragement, prayer for each other. And these, action points of Go Share day last Saturday of every month, and Dare 2 Share Live. I really encourage you, if you wanna test it out, just do Dare 2 Share Live. Grab a handful of students and do it. November 11th, global Day of Youth of Evangelism. I think you’ll see that your students get fired up and want more, and then you can start to implement Go Share Day. And there’s other ways to do it as well, but to create a gospel advancing disciple multiplying youth ministry. So thank you guys for being a part of this. Thank you for your commitment to the Lord, to the Cause of Christ, to each other, and to common t-shirts for the glory of God.

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0:38:23.9 GS: Thanks for tuning in and youth leaders just remember that a thriving youth ministry is a gospel advancing one. Thanks for tuning in.