The Greg Stier Youth ministry Podcast

0:01:53.3 GS: It’s great and it’s exciting. We’re going through this gospelised series, the seven values of a gospel advancing movement. And I really struggled with where to put you because you fit all the values so well. But I decided to talk about leaders fully embrace and model it because you fully embrace a model. But before we dive into that value, just remind me, how did we first meet? Where did we first meet?

0:02:25.3 DG: I think the first time I remember meeting you was at a Mission America meeting. I was seconded from Grace Church to be the executive director for a few years, moving into the end of the millennium. I think, we had The Lighthouse Movement. I think I met you at a youth leaders meeting and…

0:02:43.3 GS: Yeah. You know what I this it was? I think it was the Youth Ministry Executive Council.

0:02:48.9 DG: Yeah.

0:02:49.6 GS: And we were… It may have been my first year participating in that. Chuck Klein was there and we were doing the… Trying to get all the campuses covered by the year 2000. So I think you were still with FCA. Were you still with FCA then?

0:03:11.6 DG: Boy, that would have been over 30 years ago. I don’t think so. I was… I think I was with Mission America at the time.

0:03:17.8 GS: Okay.

0:03:18.6 DG: Still with Grace, but they seconded me to work with Mission America and I think that’s probably where we connected. But we’ve known each other a lot of years.

0:03:26.8 GS: We have known each other a lot of years. And I think back to when we did Dare 2 Share conferences at Grace Church, I think that’s really where we kinda got to know each other better. I remember you and I and a group of high school kids after the Friday night of a Dare 2 Share event, sitting at a Ruby Tuesday’s. And you had been pouring into these kids already, been on missions trip with them, but it was after that conference where you really started leaning into them about these My Story events. Just spend a few minutes, talk about what happened as a result… What the My Story events were and what happened as a result of them.

0:04:04.7 DG: Well, we had a… At Eden Prairie High School, one of the largest schools in the state, they were perennial state champions in football. One of the captains of the football team came on a missions trip with us. He went on a number of missions trips that previous year. A number of kids came back, just totally sold out for Jesus. And we started to get together and talk about how can we reach our campus for Christ, and we developed a strategy to have every single student on the Eden Prairie Campus prayed for by name, pray for every locker, every student, and then started doing affinity group evangelism.

0:04:40.2 DG: We taught them the G-O-S-P-E-L, how to share their story, how to share the gospel, gospel fluency. And we did a lot of affinity group evangelism. Was happening on the football team, girls volleyball, and track, soccer, the band… Throughout the whole school, the gospel is starting to penetrate. Then we put… Then an idea, how can we really leave a mark on this campus that’s impossible to erase and ask these kids to really think about how can we reach as many of these kids for Jesus as possible? That’s where we birthed this idea about My Story, is something that I kinda did back in my college days where we tried to have every person on campus exposed to the gospel.

0:05:26.1 DG: We had over half… Well, we had about 600 or… Oh, I think it was closer to 900 students came and 92 kids got saved that night. But kids… We had students sharing their testimony, “This is my story. What’s your story?” Then we got up and we had the gospel acronym up on the platform and we covered each… What are the points of the gospel, presented the gospel, and the kids just came unglued. And we ended up scaling that to seven other campuses here in the Twin Cities. It really has become… That was really one of those defining moments and I know the Lord used you Greg during that period.

0:06:06.8 GS: Well, it was so fun to be in that meeting where you guys were really strategizing. They just got done with the Dare 2 Share conference so everybody was pumped up and… It’s interesting because you’re not the youth leader, you’re the missions pastor there. But we define a youth leader as anybody who leads youth. And although you’re the missions pastor of tremendous global influence, I’ve never met anybody with more global influence, you have a heart for the next generation. And I know this isn’t our questions, but why do you have such a heart for teenagers?

0:06:47.6 DG: Well, I was one of them. That’s when I came to Christ when I was a teenager, 17 years old. And the Lord radically interrupted my life through the death of a good buddy of mine, committed suicide. He was a teammate and trusted Christ when I was a senior in high school. I just saw how important those days were. I was captain in all three of my sports, dating the homecoming queen, kind of an arrogant young guy, and that… My friend’s suicide really got my attention. And that’s where I was so impressionable at that age. And then I coached… We had five kids of our own. So one of the ways to really stay connected to my kids, I was a coach in the Eden Prairie football, basketball and baseball system. And so I got to know a lot of the kids. We had the athletes praying at midfield after games, and the chapel programs when we’d have weekend tournaments.

0:07:45.5 DG: So I just really… My FCA days, I think I really developed a real heart for students. When I got saved, I love sports and I love the Lord. And I got to combine the two and eventually got paid to do it. I was a state director for FCA for a number of years and then moved to Kansas City. So I really worked at sports ministry and youth ministry for a lot of years. So my heart was just stirred and I knew that was really the most strategic way to reach the world for Christ was reaching this next generation.

0:08:14.6 GS: Yeah, I love that. And the… We think about this principle. We’ve already talked about intercessory prayer fuels it. We had Kathy Branzell on. We talked about relational evangelism drives it. We had Mercy Alarid on with Pray for All. And leaders fully embrace and model it. So why is it so important that pastors, missions pastors, lead pastors, youth pastors, moms and dads, fully embrace and model this gospel advancing lifestyle for the next generation?

0:09:01.1 DG: Well I think it’s… Jesus modeled it himself. You look at the pattern of his life and the gospels, he would do it and then his disciples would watch. You look at Matthew 1 through 9 basically it’s Jesus is calling out his disciples and he’s selecting the 12 and he’s basically doing all the ministry himself. He’s modeling it. And then Matthew 9:35-38 is kind of a transition where he’s going to send them out and send them out to go public. It says, “The harvest is plentiful, workers are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers.” And then they ended up becoming the answer to their own prayers. Sends them out in Matthew chapter 10 there, or in the next chapter. Yeah, chapter 10:2 I think it is. But I think you look at the life of Jesus, he would do it and they would watch and then they would do it, he would help. And eventually he trained them and modeled it to where they could eventually go out and do the ministry themselves.

0:10:06.8 DG: I think that’s really critical of the church too. And Paul says, “Be a follower of me as I am of Christ.” So that whole idea of modeling and mentoring is really critical. It’s the discipleship model, the things that you’ve heard and you’ve seen in me, these entrust to faithful men. They’ll go out and teach others also. So I found in the local church, it’s an old saying, the sheep will follow where the shepherds are leading. So it’s really critical that the shepherds are leading in modeling it and embracing that lifestyle of evangelism.

0:10:40.5 GS: So good Dave. And I think one of the challenges is, I think we have a lot of youth pastors and pastors across the United States and sadly around the world as well that aren’t modeling a gospel advancing lifestyle. They may tie it into a sermon or to a talk, but they’re not necessarily reaching out to their neighbors, family, friends, strangers, with the hope of Christ. And I always tell youth leaders, if your students share the gospel as consistently as you did, would your city be reached for Christ by now? And it’s a challenge, I think, for a lot of youth leaders to live that out. One of the things I really appreciate about you Dave is that, more than anybody else I know, and I know a lot of people in this world of evangelism. I know of nobody who’s more faithful and consistent in living a gospel advancing lifestyle.

0:11:42.2 GS: You are a legend among key leaders who tell me stories and I share stories like, “I was with Dave at a restaurant and he began to share the gospel with the server, but he said, you know what? My friend Joe over here has got a transformational story about his life was deeply impacted. Joe, you not only share the gospel, you equip. You not only fish for men, you equip fishermen to do that.”

0:12:11.8 DG: Yeah.

0:12:12.8 GS: And so, it’s so important. So let’s just kind of dive into, how did evangelism and prayer for the lost and living this gospel advancing lifestyle, what are some of the things that you do to make that a part of the way that you live and breathe? Not just something you do once a month or when you go out, witnessing, sharing the gospel, but as part of the way that you live and breathe. How did you develop this gospel advancing lifestyle?

0:12:44.2 DG: Well, I think it happened the first year after I got saved. I went off to college. I was on a football team with about 100 guys and I was feeling like the voice crying in the wilderness. There wasn’t much of a presence of the lord on the team. Really struggled with my lifestyle. Lord took me through a period of real brokenness. Suffered a knee injury, I had a surgery, and I remember getting drunk and getting in a fight with a few guys on a weekend, and I was about as low as a snake’s belly. Just really through a period of brokenness. I got in my dorm room. The state director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes picked me up hitchhiking. He knew that I was a Christian. He had done some football chapels for our football team. And he challenged me. He said, “Dave, are you gonna make your life count for Christ on campus?” And I said, “Man, Ron, I don’t have to know if I’m a Christian the way I’m living.”

0:13:38.1 DG: And that challenge really, it was a defining moment for me. I said, “Lord, what am I going to gonna do with my life?” And I got on my face, on my dorm room, just cried out to God. I said, “Lord, here’s my life. The mess that it’s in. If you can do something with it, it’s all yours.” And the Lord gave me two desires. He gave me a desire for his word. And then I couldn’t stop talking about Jesus.

0:14:01.9 DG: Nobody taught me how to witness. Nobody taught me G-O-S-P-E-L or anything like that, but I just couldn’t stop talking about Christ. And I say Evangelism 101 in the early church. Just take your hand away from their mouth. Instead, we said, “We can’t stop talking about that which we’ve seen and we’ve heard.” I had such a radical feeling of the Holy Spirit. The Lord just really overwhelmed me and I just started sharing Christ with everybody. And I think the Lord hardwired me that way but I think through that time of brokenness. And I read another thing that was a real defining moment for me. I read a autobiography by John Praying Hyde. How would you like to be known as Greg Praying Stier? Dave praying Gibson? I wish I was known for that. But he prayed so much for souls. 1908, he prayed for one soul a day to come to Christ. He was a missionary in India. And the Lord gave him 400 converts that year. And then the next year, he prayed for two souls a day. And the Lord answered that prayer. And then four souls a day in 1910, four people to come to Christ, not just to share Christ with that many people.

0:15:16.5 DG: And just, I said, “Boy, how much do I really trust the Lord? Could I ask the Lord for one opportunity a day?” And that’s when I started years and years ago, praying for one opportunity every day to go after that one lost sheep. I think that’s a prayer that the Lord loves to answer. So I’d encourage people to pray for Bob every day. I call it… It’s just a simple little acronym. I say, “Lord, give me a burden for the lost.” Romans 9, Paul says, “I have deep anguish in my soul for my countrymen.” I think we’ve lost that burden in the church. Jesus saw the multitudes moved with compassion, then pray for open doors. Colossians 4:3 Paul says, “Pray for me, that God will open up a door for the ministry. The word that I can speak forth. The ministry of Christ.” I was driving over to Hopkins Honda just a couple days ago to get my car tuned and get the oil changed. And I was praying the whole way over. I said, “Lord, open up a door for the Ministry of The Word.” And I talked to Landon and Justin, two guys. I said, “Hey, you guys, you have a few minutes?” They said, “Yeah, we’re working till four. You got as much time as you want.” I said, “Could I share my story with you?” They said, “We’d love to hear it.” Shared my testimony, went through G-O-S-P-E-L with them, shared the gospel with them. I said, “You guys have a story like that?” They said, “No, we don’t.” They’re just within a whisker of praying to receive Jesus.

0:16:36.9 GS: Wow!

0:16:37.3 DG: But every day, praying for those open doors. And then the third is pray for boldness. So pray for a burden for the lost, open doors for the gospel and boldness to share. Paul in Ephesians 6:19 says, “Pray for me that whenever I open my mouth, words will be given to me that I can fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel. That I boldly proclaim it as I should.” Just a little practical thing that… But yeah, the Lord just gave me that burden…

0:17:04.7 GS: It’s like the movie ‘What About Bob’? Now we gotta be, we’re praying for burden, opportunity and boldness.

0:17:12.7 DG: And boldness.

0:17:13.5 GS: I love that.

0:17:14.2 DG: Yeah. Remember that if you don’t get anything out of the podcast, it’s a good thing to apply to your life. But I’ve been doing it for years, and sometimes it’s three or four. When I’m up traveling on a missions trip, I’ve had eight to 10 conversations. I think we’ve gotta get this idea of sharing Christ, not treating it like an event, or I’m gonna go out on a witnessing team. You don’t go and witness, you witness as you go. And in Matthew, and Jesus, when he gives the commission, he says, “As you are going, make disciples.” That’s really what that passage is. Jesus was touching people everywhere he went. I look at the first lost, people say, “Well find that person of peace.” I look for the first lost person each day that I can engage in a meaningful conversation with and try to move it from the secular to the spiritual movement and build a bridge from my heart to their heart that Jesus could walk across and touch their life. And I look at them as a person, a potential person of peace. They’re receptive to the messenger and receptive to the message. I see that’s a person of peace. And if they aren’t, I just dust off the feet and say, “God bless you. Have a great day.” I’m not into buttonholing evangelism. I don’t think that’s a good approach. I think you need to… I try to get to know their story, build a little redemptive bridge. But I can do that in a five minute conversation at checking out at home depot or wherever so…

0:18:42.0 GS: Dave, I’m telling you, you just are that great balance of the lion and the lamb, relational and the relentless. And I’ve never seen anybody, do it more effectively, relationally, lovingly. But clearly at Dare 2 Share, we use the idea, ask, admire, admit, and asking questions, admiring what you can, admitting your story and how you need Jesus. And you do that so naturally in everyday conversation. So I appreciate the leadership you bring to that. Let’s talk a little bit about roadblocks… Because what do you think a typical pastor, youth pastor, Christian adult, what are some of the roadblocks for them to fully embrace and model this gospel advancing lifestyle? Because like you said, the sheep are gonna go where the shepherd leads, but oftentimes, these teenagers are in a youth ministry setting where they’re not seeing their youth leader or people in a church setting where they’re not seeing their pastor, do this as part of their lifestyle. So what are some of the roadblocks that keep pastors and youth leaders from effectively living this out?

0:20:06.7 DG: Well, I think we’re churning out people out of our seminaries and bible schools or Christian schools that aren’t equipped to be sharing the gospel and aren’t expected to be sharing the gospel. I don’t think a seminary student should graduate from seminary if they haven’t led someone to Christ or they haven’t planted a church. And we’re doing that all around the world with our church planter training and our… They have to share Christ with at least five people every week. And, if they don’t lead two people to Christ before they go through disciples, making disciples, we don’t let them continue on into the training. I think it’s obedience based discipleship, when… I think they aren’t being equipped and trained, in those earlier years and they’re coming out of churches. That’s why I think what Dare 2 Share is doing is just so critically important in these seven gospel advancing values.

0:21:01.1 DG: You don’t build a church on programs. You build it on values and, in creating a culture, it’s gotta be the air that we breathe. Then programs become opportunities for expression of those values. So I think, leaders have to really embrace that and they have to model it, then it has to become systemic. And, I think one of the biggest roadblocks to the gospel is within the church. And comes from leaders of the church. And I love the church. I’m a part of it. I’m a churchman, so I’m not criticizing something Jesus said he was gonna build. And I love his bride as the church, but we’ve got a lot of challenges there.

0:21:42.9 GS: If we push back a little bit, Dave, you have strip mined, Dare 2 Share of the seven values gospel, kinda merge it with some of your own cool stuff Bob. And I’ve strip mined from you and have merged it into Dare 2 Share stuff. But how applicable is… Are these principles? And you’ve been telling me this for years, how applicable are these principles and these tools, the acrostic and the seven values and the training, globally as well as throughout the whole church and not just youth ministry? This is a little of a side note, but I think it’d be good for people to hear from you ’cause you do a lot of church planning and work with a lot of major church planning ministries around the world.

0:22:27.9 DG: Yeah, it’s the best thing going out there. I’d say Dare 2 Share, the DNA of Dare 2 Share has permeated the DNA of Grace Church. We’re trying to get it more permeated in certain areas of our church and some of that’s a leadership function, if you don’t have certain leaders, and that comes back to that value of the leader really fully embracing and modeling it. But it’s radically affected everything we do. I was teaching a class yesterday in the church and they’ve gotta come back next week with the gospel outline memorized. I had them going through G-O-S-P-E-L. I’ve done that in Vietnam, I’ve done that in Africa, I’ve done it in the Middle East. We’re in 51 countries, 131 missionaries, and it’s… I’ve used Dare 2 Share, this is just a commercial for Dare 2 Share, but it’s just… I’m eternally grateful for the ministry because it’s also… Yeah, I was telling them, I use so much of what you’ve taught Greg, you gotta get the steak right. The platter could vary, but you’ve gotta get that… That gospel piece is so important and…

0:23:42.2 GS: Yeah.

0:23:42.2 DG: And so, yeah, I think it’s really been amazing how the Lord has used that. And well, so I love it. To hear it in other languages too. We’ve got it in seven languages, and I know you’ve got it in other languages too, that we’re trying to teach people all the gospel principles and we’re on this journey together to try to reach 1 billion teenagers and train 1,000,000… To train 10 million to reach 1 billion. So we’re in lockstep on all that so…

0:24:14.2 GS: Yeah. A million gospel advancing leaders to mobilize 10 million teens to reach 1 billion.

0:24:20.1 DG: Yeah.

0:24:20.8 GS: And, it’s exciting Dave, because, I look at Grace Church, just preached up there, just over a week ago and Troy is this theologian, [0:24:36.4] ____ a lot, great expository. You’re the evangelism guy. And between the two of you, it’s like a… It’s like a double barrel shotgun of theology and evangelism and what a blessed church that is to have such a deep and wide kind of opportunity there in, Eden Prairie. As we talk about just the vision globally, it’s used to tell me something, ’cause for years we were primarily focused on the United States. You are using our stuff globally. But for years you were giving me a hard time and saying, “Greg, it’s a big world out there.” And you had a specific thing that you would relentlessly bring up to me that became a pebble in the shoe of my soul. You, remember what you used to say?

0:25:24.7 DG: Yeah. Well, if you have a heart for your own city, you’ve got probably less than 1% of God’s heart for the world. If you only have a heart for America, you’ve got about 5% of God’s heart for the world. God has a heart for the world and for God so loved the world and there’s a huge population of youth. And should the gospel be preached twice until it’s been preached once, there’s so many who’ve never heard, it’s a matter of access. We have so much access to the gospel. So I have a huge heart for America, we just need to… Evangelism is a responsibility of every believer and we clearly need to be reaching people for Jesus here. But I just thought you had the best kept secret out there and that wasn’t being shared around the world. Now it’s starting to get scaled globally, which I’m really excited about.

0:26:15.9 GS: Well, I’m so grateful that you… It was like the pebble of my shoe. I’m so grateful for that. ‘Cause God now has used that in the globe. God has opened it up, phenomenal doors. And many of those doors, God has used you to open up those doors. So it’s exciting stuff. I do wanna bring in our youth leader, well again, we call this the Greg Stier Youth Ministry Podcast. And so I always actually try to have real youth leaders that are there to interact with our guests. And we’re gonna be bringing in Doug Henry. Doug has been a bi-vocational ministry leader for 12 years with eight of those in youth ministry. He’s currently the student pastor, at Mission Southern Baptist Church in Washburn, Missouri. 26 years in law enforcement, Chief detective, he still is the chief detective at the Barry County Sheriff’s Office, and he’s been married to his wife Mandy for 18 years, has two children. Laura Jean and Joe Wade. And Doug, thanks so much for being a part of the podcast. And I just wanna open it up for you to connect with Dave, any questions, comments, thoughts. And I’ll let you guys take it from here.

0:27:27.9 Doug Henry: Kind of being sitting with both of you guys, I’ve forgot to talk with you both before. Just a huge fan of both of you, of course what you do with leaders and discipleship and evangelism. And so for, I guess my question for Dave on my bi-vocational scale, because we make up 85% of youth leaders across America, how do or what best practices could you give me to be able to get the bi-vo guy down the road from [0:28:00.2] ____ to go all in? Because I love what Chris Stout said last year at the Gospel Advancing Summit, that a lot of churches are gospel centered, but they’re not gospel advancing. And so they think since they’re giving the gospel from inside that classroom, or that pulpit that they are gospel advancing. But in reality they’re just gospel centered. So any advice to me trying to network, get these other leaders to grab a hold of, of being that leader who models this for their teenagers?

0:28:31.3 DG: You know I always say relationships precede partnerships. You wanna build some relationships of trust with them. That’s where I’d begin, get to know them and find out what’s in their heart. But I would, I’d challenge them and say, “Put it out there.” And I really like to present a challenge to people about the lostness of people and especially in the younger generation, are we gonna… They’re going to hell in a hand basket. What are we doing about it? And I think people… Sometimes I look at it, it’s like having a dog who’s got a bone in his mouth. You try to take the bone out of the mouth, you’re gonna have a fight on your hands, ’cause people are kinda wed to their own stuff and they want that old bone.

0:29:24.7 DG: But I think if you could put a juicier bone on the side with a little meat on it and say, “Hey, they might be willing to drop that old one.” And I think to present a compelling vision, should lead by example and talk about the impact that you’re having, the Lord is doing through you. And then partner in the ministry. Ask for ways that you can link arms and come alongside those people. And I think it takes guys like you who are gonna be catalytic to help make that happen. So I guess those would be a few ideas that… I also tend to be go of the goers. There’s a lot of people that just wanna play church out there and I’m just not into that. And when I left FCA, I told our senior pastor I didn’t wanna come and play church. But to find out the ones who are really ready to go and have a passion and… I tend to gravitate to those individuals. And it’s easier to hold back fanatics than to try to raise people from the dead. You got… So there’s some people I’d try to find those warm prospects out there and go with them.

0:30:40.1 DH: Well, that’s where I got really fortunate. I remember Chris Selby is the guy that got me plugged into Dare 2 Share Ministries. And so right when I got into youth ministry just… I mean, been in it for a little while, was the first Dare 2 Share live that happened. And they put all this stuff in my face at this Dare 2 share live event that was good and said, “Now go knock on doors.” And I’m gonna tell you, it wasn’t a big trick for me ’cause I’m used to knocking on people’s doors and having them slam it in my face or run out the back door. So it wasn’t really a big deal to me. But I tried to invest this into a lot of the local leaders, like our Go Share day, Dare 2 Share live stuff like that. And I know that it’s intimidating to go out and talk to people and to have those conversations. And I think… How much in-house practice do you think would get a lot of these leaders to actually be able to go function and do those things?

0:31:37.5 DG: I like to lead by example. So I’ll take somebody out to lunch and I’ll just interact with a server and I’ll just let them see me, how I live my life, and praying for servers, sharing with servers. Or I’ll say, Hey, let’s go take an Uber ride together. And I think if they see you lead by example, that really helps.

0:32:03.8 DH: Sure.

0:32:05.2 DG: And I like to also put people on the spot. I call it ‘put them on the spot’ evangelism. When you’re out in a public setting, you might wanna call on them and say, “Hey, Greg.” Or “Doug’s got a great story. Do you mind if he shares that with you?” [chuckle]

0:32:25.2 DH: Right.

0:32:25.2 DG: But I… Go ahead.

0:32:27.2 DH: Go ahead. Go ahead.

0:32:29.1 DG: No, I think it helps to come alongside people in ministry. And when we talk about leadership, we fully embrace and model it. I think it begins with us too. And if they can see that we’re leading by example, lead by example personally, lead by example in your ministry, let them come and see your ministry, be a part of it, come alongside help them in their ministry and say, is there anything we could do? Bring a towel and a basin and to serve you and help make you more successful? Then I would start infiltrating them with the seven values.

0:33:07.5 DG: Here’s how we gospelised our ministry, it’s right out of the Book of Acts. And I’d start playing that playbook about prayer, to fuel it. And evangelism really has to drive it. I like to call it relentless relational evangelism, leaders fully embracing and modeling it and discipleship. You know the seven values. I’d try to encourage them to start infiltrating their ministry with that. And then teach them some good methodology. I’d take them to the Gospel app and, Life in 6 Words. And those are some great tools. And I’d start integrating the Dare 2 Share stuff. And you could show them how it works in your ministry and how it can be effective in theirs.

0:33:51.7 DH: I think one of the things that helped us, this week, we had… Baccalaureate services are coming up for our seniors and they, the seniors got to write down, which translation of the Bible they wanted to receive. They got to write down which church they were affiliated with. And just to back up the stats, there was over 85% of that class had no church affiliation whatsoever. And so that was something that I was able to use with the youth leaders that were in the room and say, “Look, here’s what I’ve been talking about. This is why it’s so important for us to take this and go out with it.” And I said, “I’m not trying to tell you that I’m right and you’re wrong. That we’ve been doing it better.” ‘Cause I think that’s a fine line I’ve gotta walk with, with these other leaders that I’m not trying to come across as we’re doing it better, but we’re just doing it and we wanna do it with you. And we run into a lot of ‘my church against your church’ mentality. So that’s a wall that we have to break down. Any advice on that? I mean how to get that so I can get these leaders to start embracing it?

0:35:00.0 DG: I just taught… I’m a spiritual coach for the Northland FCA leadership team, all the state directors in the five state area and the regional director. But I was talking about how to win friends and influence people, take a genuine interest in others. I used a little Dale Carnegie. Talk in terms of their interest, smile, use their name, talk in terms of their interests. I would just find out what their interests are. I’d really try to come with a servant’s heart and just say, “Hey, I want to help make you successful. Anything we can do?” And they don’t really care about our program so much. They care about their program and… Talk in terms of their interests. So find out what they’re interested in and then try to help them be successful. And, I don’t know if there’s any magic to it, but, I do think, just if you come with that posture of humility and a servant’s heart, I know you do Doug… So not that… And I know there’s always this little tension that you have when you have other ministries or other churches involved that there’s a resistance sometimes to change and embracing somebody else’s methodology or vision.

0:36:20.1 DH: Sure. Okay.

0:36:21.4 GS: I think the other thing is, and you’ll know this, Doug, with your military background, the necessity of an enemy. That the enemy’s not each other and the enemy’s Satan. And that collectively we wanna steal from the largest youth group in town and help each other’s youth groups grow. And I think once youth leaders really believe that’s your heart, then they’re not competing with you anymore. They’re like okay, “We’re competing alongside you, against satan. And we’re doing this together.” And praying those strongholds down ’cause there are strongholds in the church. So thanks so much you guys. I do wanna just spend just a few minutes at the end talking to you David. And I know Doug’s been a part of Go Share days, last Saturday of every month.

0:37:15.7 GS: He’s one of those groups that takes our kids out sharing the gospel. We have youth groups around the world. That actually came out of the Go Movement, which is a big initiative, the last Saturday of May where, I’ll let you talk about it. But people from around the world are going out and sharing the gospel. We are part of the youth task force that’s Dare 2 Share. We said, “Hey, what if we did it the last Saturday of every month?” Because, we could just tap the merry-go-round the last Saturday of every month getting students going out to share the gospel. But just spend a little bit of time, Doug, just a few minutes talking about the Go Movement, how youth leaders can be a part of it because we need to get the North America rocking. It’s blowing up around the world, but North America’s a little slow to the table. So talk a little bit about Go Movement.

0:38:04.3 DG: Yeah, it’s in 130 countries now. It came alongside the Global Day of Prayer. Graham Power out of South Africa had 200 million Christians praying on Pentecost weekend, on Pentecost Sunday and Werner Nachtigal from Germany. It’s just like the Lord to raise up a guy who can’t even pronounce his name out of Germany to come alongside. He’s a flaming evangelist just like you, Greg. And I know you know Werner, but.

0:38:30.6 GS: He’s a former rockstar too. German rockstar punk rocker or whatever.

0:38:35.5 DG: He is… Yeah, total…

0:38:36.4 GS: He’s awesome.

0:38:36.6 DG: Total, band that came to Christ and a flaming personal evangelist. And I think the Lord has raised this guy up. He talked to Graham Power, they said, “Let’s combine prayer and evangelism.” He said, “Let’s have a global outreach day.” So one day out of the year where the whole body of Christ would come together and go out and share, Jesus, that’s grown to over 130 countries now. And they estimated between 60 and 80 million somewhere in there last year, believers were immobilized. The goal this year is to have 120 million believers around the world. You have big groups like WEA, World Evangelical Alliance, and Campus Crusades, Steve Douglas, a lot of notable names and ministries that are tying into it in Power 21 billion Soul-Harvest. The whole vision is every believer a witness. Every believer is a witness for Jesus Christ. We say everyone can reach someone and together we can reach the world. So we’re not asking people to join a program or an event, but just say, could you live a Jesus lifestyle? It grew from a global outreach day to a global outreach month. Basically that window between Easter and Pentecost. Easter, the best news on the planet, in Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came. And… Sorry about that… And, so we’re trying to mobilize an army and Greg is co-chairing the Youth Task Force with Nader Maurice out of Cairo, Egypt.

0:40:04.7 DG: He has 50 million young people in his whole global network with GKPN. It’s massive. And world Evangelical Alliance, 600 million members, Colin Piper heading up their youth task force. Greg is chairing it along with Nader and we’re trying to, through just the youth track, eventually raise up 1,000,000 leaders who will train 10 million youth who will reach 1 billion teenagers for Jesus Christ. So I’m pretty excited about it. We want everybody to be involved. You don’t have to… You can go to gomovement.world or GO Movement USA and get information how you can get involved. But, it’s… I’d use all the Dare 2 Share training that you’ve got and whatever training… Do it your way and let’s get a… We say everyone can reach someone and together we can reach the world. And it’s pretty exciting stuff. And we’ve got a one-a-day challenge too for people that are hardy and we say, one-a-day in May. Could you ask the Lord to give you one person a day in the whole month of May. Takes 21 days to form a habit, and the best habit you’ll ever form is reading the word every day, but then going out and sharing Jesus Christ with someone every day.

0:41:24.5 GS: Love it, love it. So what’s the US website two for the Go Movement.

0:41:29.0 DG: Gomvmt.usa and…

0:41:34.0 GS: Okay.

0:41:35.6 DG: Then it’s, gomovement.globe for the global site.

0:41:43.1 GS: Yeah. So encourage youth leaders to go to gomovement.usa or gomovement.globe and be a part of this Go Movement. Again, last Saturday of every month. You don’t need to wait till May, or one a day in May, or one a day every day. And just be a part of this. So, Dave, thank you, for being the person that disciples me and I love you, Jonathan and David together here. And, so grateful for your friendship and for your example in my life. Doug, thank you for grinding it out as a Bible youth leader, doing whatever it takes to reach every teen everywhere in Missouri, Washburn, Missouri. And so, youth leaders, thank you so much for tuning in and being part of this. Encourage it again, subscribe, get the word out. Social media, spread the word. It’s time for a revolution and youth ministry. Remember that a thriving youth ministry is a gospel advancing one. Thanks for tuning in.