I can’t help but think back to my first “staff” position in ministry. It was as a junior high youth ministry intern. I was twenty years old. Although I only got paid enough to cover my gas I worked about twenty hours a week at a little Baptist church. I loved working there but the youth leader who was in charge of me and the other interns drove me nuts. Everything about him made me cringe. The very intonation of the words that came out of his mouth were like nails on the chalkboard of my soul.

Obviously there were some deep, underlying forces that had been at work in our relationship over the years and the cracks had turned into chasms. There were subtle and not-so-subtle ways that I began to undermine his authority. Rolled eyes or sarcastic comments (under the lying cloak of “just joking”) during staff meetings made it obvious to everyone else that something was seriously wrong in our relationship. As a result the ministry suffered because I didn’t want to work for him, with him or by him. I was convinced that the feeling was mutual.

I had thrust the dust of our relationship under the rug for so long that my brush was out of bristles. All it took was one seemingly small incident to push me over the edge. On the side of a literal mountain our figurative mountain became Everest. It was during a youth group hiking trip that we were suddenly face to face and toe to toe. The others in our group were so far ahead of us on the trail that they had no clue that what was about to go down was a throw down.

Before I knew it he had my shirt collar wrapped tightly in his white knuckled fingers and I had my left hand wrapped around his throat. My secret, sinful dream was finally going to come true, I was about to unleash my free fist of fury right into his nose until…

He started crying. Yes, he started bawling right there on the mountain trail right in front of God and the chipmunks. He apologized profusely for the way he had been treating me and, through his genuine tears, he asked me for my forgiveness.

Now there was no way I was going to hit a crying, truly repentant man (although, at the time, I was so mad that I would have hit a sniveling, quasi-repentant man.) As a matter of fact I broke down too and asked for his forgiveness as well.

In that equal-parts-awkward-and-awesome moment our relationship was repaired. Our professional relationship blossomed into a genuine friendship for the very first time.

Before this incident every little problem (aka “molehills”) we would encounter would set me off. Little deals became big deals and conflict ensued. But the conflict resolution on the mountain began to turn big issues (aka “mountains”) into molehills for the rest of the time we ministered together in youth ministry. We were able to tackle big problems together. I had his back and he had mine.

How does all of this tie into your ministry relationships? Simply this, if you have strong relationships then together you can overcome huge obstacles. If you don’t then you’ll get tripped up over the smallest, dumbest issues. Things that could be resolved with a quick text now require a major meeting…usually filled with drama, trauma and politics.

When we approach relationships like Paul challenges us to in Philippians 2:1-4 mountains become molehills, “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

Choose the molehill. Build strong relationships!

Let’s dive a little deeper into each of these priorities…

Pray

The youth ministries we’ve noticed that are growing have intercessory prayer as core to what they do. They make room to pray. In the midst of ministry and meetings they view the most important meeting as the one they have with God to intercede on behalf of the next generation. They pray for Christian teens to grow strong in their relationship with Jesus and stand in the gap for their non Christian friends to put their faith in Jesus. They pray for non Christian teens to be open to the gospel. They pray for schools, parents, teachers, and others who can help create a context for true transformation in their communities.

By the way, there is no set way that these youth ministries do this. Some, like my buddy John, do this as an organic part of how they do youth ministry. Others, like my buddy Andy, do it as a programmatic piece of their weekly youth ministry network meeting and monthly student gathering. Still others use great websites like everyschool.com to claim campuses for prayer. However you choose to do it, do it.

Live

“Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1

If you aren’t reaching out to your family, friends and neighbors with the good news of Jesus how can you expect your teenagers to reach their classmates, teammates and friends with the gospel? You don’t have to be good at it. You just have to go for it.

Maybe this means writing and sending a letter to a family member that clearly and lovingly lays out the gospel. Maybe it means that you host a neighborhood block party to get to know your neighbors so that you can begin those spiritual conversations. You can take a friend out for coffee, send an old classmate a Facebook message or invite a couple over for dinner. However you choose to begin to make evangelism a priority in your life go for it. Then you’ve earned the right to challenge your teens to risk to share their faith. Even if you stumble and stutter or flail and “fail” at it you’ll earn the street cred to challenge your teenagers to risk it all to reach their friends.

Inspire

Never underestimate the power of inspiration. Heck, much of the Bible is inspiration. When I read the book of Acts I’m not thinking about it being a historical timeline upon which I can hang the epistles. Instead, I’m thinking about storming the castle! The Psalms inspire me. First and second Samuel inspire me. The gospels inspire me. Stories inspire me and, if you’re honest, they inspire you too!

We need to motivate our teenagers to live THE Cause by telling stories of heroes who were willing to share their faith. And then we need to open up opportunities for the teenagers in our youth groups to tell stories as well! Some youth groups “Take 5 for THE Cause” every week. Others use baptisms as a time to share the stories of those who are coming to Christ. Some youth leaders tie gospel-centric stories into their weekly talks to keep the spread of the gospel as a top priority in their youth ministries. Make a plan of how you are going to inspire your teenagers to share their faith on a regular basis.

Equip to evangelize

Once a teen is inspired to share their faith they must learn how to share their faith in a way that combines the best of relational and relentless evangelism. Motivation without information that leads to application leads to frustration. In other words, many teenagers have given up the quest to share their faith because they simply don’t know what to say.

Teenagers must learn how to bring it up, how to lay it out, how to deal with objections in a gentle way and how to give someone an opportunity to put their faith in Christ. There are all sorts of resources out there to help you equip your teens to share their faith, many of which you can find on www.dare2share.org.

Deploy to multiply

At the end of the day THE Cause (aka “The Great Commission”) is not just about making converts to Christianity. It’s about making disciples who make disciples. Our teenagers are called to reach their friends with the hope of Jesus and then disciple the ones who say yes to grow deep in their faith and go wide with their faith.

Your job is to coach them to do this effectively. It may feel clunky at first but, through the power of the Holy Spirit, it can be done.

Will all your teens be ready, willing and able to do this? No! So start with your core and move out from there. That’s what Jesus did. He started with the ground that produced “thirty, sixty and a hundred fold.” We scattered spiritual seeds everywhere and then poured his life into those who were willing to go for it. “Go with the goers and pray for the others” must be our ministry mantra is we are going to truly get multi-PLIED for THE Cause.

So what’s your “Get multi-PLIED” Strategy for THE Cause?

What’s your plan…

…to make intercessory prayer a bigger priority in your life and ministry?

…to live THE Cause in your own circle of influence?

…to inspire your teens to live THE Cause?

…to equip your teens to evangelize?

…to deploy your teens to multiply?

Please share your “Get multi-PLIED” plan in the comment section below so others can be encouraged and challenged by it. Just remember that it doesn’t need to be a perfect plan, just a good one. In the words of the great “theologian” General George S. Patton, “A good plan violently executed today is better than the perfect plan next week.”

Share your good plan and then passionately get ‘er done!

AMDG-IHS

Nena Harvath - Livin' the Cause from Troy Hillstrom on Vimeo.

If this fictional scenario was factual reality then convincing every person on the planet under the age of thirty to believe in Jesus would become the greatest social justice movement in the history of the world. Churches would line up to throw resources behind this urgent and immediate cause. Christians would share the gospel to the younger generation with boldness, passion and urgency.

Well, the Lake of Fire is not just outside of Cleveland, but it is just on the other side of the border to this life. The Lake of Fire is not the immediate consequence for every thirty year old, but it is the wages for everyone who has ever sinned no matter what their age (Romans 6:23.) Every person on this planet is just one breath away from heaven or hell at every second of every day. In light of this brutal reality we must use our every breath to convince every one within our reach to believe in Jesus before it’s too late. We must embrace sharing the gospel with everyone as the greatest cause in human history.

“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.” Revelation 20:11-15

It’s not.

I remember the first time I preached my first sermon as a twelve year old Christian school student. I was so nervous that I literally shook the pulpit. My hands were locked onto the sides of the pulpit and they were quaking. There was a pencil on the lip of the pulpit where my Bible and notes were resting. It rattled back and forth so quickly that it sounded like I was working a maraca behind the way-too-big-for-me pulpit. I was sure that my nervousness was obvious to everyone. But those seasoned preachers who were rating my sermon wrote on my evaluation, “Way to preach with intensity! You were so intense that you were actually shaking the pulpit!” They mistook my nervousness for intensity. I knew at that point I was called to be a preacher.

Maybe that’s why I have always had a penchant for verses like 1 Corinthians 2:3, “I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.”After all, if the great Apostle Paul struggled with nerves, then puny little Greg Stier could too…and so can you.

Over the last three decades plus of preaching here’s how I have learned to conquer my nerves instead of letting them paralyze me:

1. I let my nerves drive me to study harder.

There’s a great line in the movie Unforgiven when a one-armed deputy is asked why he always loads two guns. His answer was classic, “I don’t want to die for a lack of shooting.”

In the same way I don’t want to choke due to the lack of preparing. I allow my nerves to get me back to the Bible. I let what Jim Collins in his excellent book, Great by Choice, calls “Productive Paranoia” drive me to exegete the text, build a solid outline, insert powerful illustrations and close out with a clear call to action.

2. I let my nerves drive me to pray harder.

How did Paul conquer his nerves? Through prayer! In Ephesians 6:19 he emphasizes this essential component of overcoming fear, “Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel….”

Prayer is where we wrestle with our fears and pin them to the ground with the help of the Trinity. It sure seems like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane wrestled with what seemed like genuine, knee-rattling fear. But he caused it to tap out before the throne of God (although it was a sweaty, bloody cagematch!) Through the power of His Spirit in us we can do the same.

3. I let my nerves drive me to preach every sermon as if it were my last.

When describing his preaching style Richard Baxter, the great reformer from 500 years ago, said, “I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” That’s exactly the way I want to preach…because it could be my last sermon. I don’t want to stumble and stutter into the presence of God at the end of a bad sermon. I want to blast into the throneroom of the King of kings, veins in my neck popping and having an aneuryism after my last point, laying down that sermon outline before his feet as my final sacrifice of praise.

As a matter of fact I’m nervous right now as I type these words. Why? Because this weekend I’ll be preaching to almost 3,000 teenagers at a Dare 2 Share conference in Washington D.C. I’ve taken too long on this blog and I’ve got to get back to final preparations. There’s more work to do on my sermon notes. I need to go on a prayer walk so that I can pin my nerves to the ground. I need to get back at it.

But I’ll leave you with this final thought. I hope you thank God for your nerves as I do mine. These twitchy, sweat-inducing little friends drive us to our knees and to our study. They add adrenalin to our sermons and fire to our bellies. Without nerves we may think that it’s about us and our ability to communicate. With nerves we’re reminded to go back to the well of God’s presence for the power and unction we need to preach with impact.

Please pray for me and our preaching team this week in DC. Pray for power and impact. This business of preaching is serious business.

“…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

We fix our eyes on our Savior who is waiting at the It is finished line with his own skinned knees, bruised body and pierced hands. His body bruised from the beatings he took, his hands pierced from the crucifixion he endured and his knees skinned from the weight of the cross that pushed him down to the jagged pavement of the Via dolorosa (AKA “The Way of Suffering“).

Yes, it was the crucifixion that paid the penalty for us sinners but it was his skinned knees that demonstrated the pathway for us saints. Jesus ran his race toward Golgotha with a limp. He clawed his way forward and climbed his way up “the hill of the skull” with his own skull wrapped in a painful crown of thorns. I’m sure he got dizzy from the loss of blood and friends but he didn’t stop pushing forward until he took his place in our place on the cross.

Now he stands at the finish line cheering us on even as we stumble toward him. By his grace and through his Spirit we press forward until we trip across the tape into his outstretched arms. In that moment we’ll long to hear, “Well done my good and faithful servant” whispered in our ears by the Savior himself. If we want to hear those words then we need to follow his example now. We need to spend time in our own garden of Gethsemane getting prayed up. And then we need to get up, move forward and keep pressing on until our race is run, until the “it” he has called us to “is finished.”

If you feel like you’re just failing forward everyday then you are in good company. You are in the company of Christ himself.

-A bullhorn?
-A “Repent” sign?
-A pointed index finger (resulting in a flipped up middle finger)?

Too often, too many of us have negative views of the word evangelism. Sadly, the 2,000 year old practice of evangelism has 2,000 years worth of baggage that comes with it (i.e. the inquisition, burning heretics at the stake, Jim Jones, etc.) In the early church the baggage was merely carry-on. But today, there is so much baggage associated with evangelism that we are forced to check it and tempted to chuck it.

But we shouldn’t. Jesus himself modeled the right brand of evangelism which was equal parts awkward and awesome, drenched both in love and boldness. He commissioned his disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel to everyone. The baton of that responsibility has been passed from generation of believers to generation of believers and it is now firmly in our hands. It’s our turn to run with it. But as we do we should do it with an eye toward changing people’s perspective of evangelism from manipulative and obnoxious to patient, powerful and persuasive.

Here are five reasons why we need to rebrand evangelism:

1. Evangelism literally means “to bring Good News.”

Christians are called to be the good news people not the bad news bears. When we evangelize we are to do it with a smile on our face and a twinkle in our eyes. It’s like getting the privilege of telling a friend that the Lotto ticket they had purchased was the big winner or sharing with a cancer-ridden family member that scientists have discovered the cure. Biblical evangelism reeks of breathless excitement and joy, not judgmental, frowny-faced coersion.

2. It has been typecast for “the professionals.”

Too often we think of Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Luis Palau and other evangelists as the most qualified Christians to do the work of evangelism. But the rebranding of evangelism begins when it moves from the professionals to the people. When the gospel begins to spread like a contagion is, not just when another evangelistic festival comes to town, but when the everyday Joes and Jolenes take the good news to their family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and classmates.

To rebrand evangelism we must put the work squarely in the hands of “the average Christian.” In the words of Jim Groen, “The first reformation took place when the word of God got into the hands of the common people. The second reformation will take place when the work of God gets into the hands of the common people.”

3. The gospel is ultimately a love story, not hate speech.

God kneels in the mud to breathe into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life. The first thing Adam sees when he awakens is the smiling, muddy face of his Creator. God then performs surgery on Adam and transforms his rib into his bride. God got muddy and bloody to make Adam and Eve. Then humanity rebelled and broke God’s heart while severing the relationship. But Jesus, the lover of our souls, would not be disuaded. He got dirty again to come to this earth and be born in a food trough for smelly barn animals. He got bloody again, but this time it was his own blood, not Adam’s. Jesus died to restore the shattered relationship. This love story is one of romance (walking in the garden hand in hand in the cool of the day), break ups (getting expelled from the garden), sacrifice, surrender and, of course, the ultimate “and they lived happily ever after.”

The rebranding of evangelism needs to happen because too often Christians have communicated a “gospel” that is really no gospel at all (See Galatians 1:6-9.) It’s been more about what we are against than who is for us (Romans 8:31-38.) It’s been more about rules than the possibility of a restored relationship through faith in Jesus Christ (Titus 3:5.)

4. This generation is looking for meaning and Biblical evangelism provides it.

The goal of Biblical evangelism is to engage the lost, not enrage them. It is the process of sharing the good news, asking questions, listening deeply and making “a case for Christ” with humility and love. This is what the Apostle Paul was getting at when he wrote to his young protege’ in 2 Timothy 2:24-26, “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”In a way Paul was seeking to rebrand evangelism even in his day. He reminded Timothy that it wasn’t about winning an argument but wooing a soul to Christ.

5. There is a real need.

We must rebrand evangelism because we are living in a world in desperate need of Jesus and evangelism is the portal through which we share the person of Jesus with others. Whether it be the angst of “cutting” or the desperation of suicidal thoughts or the cul-de-sac of American greed the gospel provides the solution to the deepest needs of the human soul. We must do what it takes to reframe evangelism as good news in a bad world, as light in the midst of darkness, as peace in a world of chaos.

Rebranding the word “evangelism” does not start with a campaign or a commercial. It starts with you and me, lovingly, gently, relationally and relentlessly sharing the good news with those within our reach.

Let’s start rebranding today!

I was wrong.

It took ten years for me to finally get the message from heavenly headquarters, but I finally got it. Soon after I resigned my post at Grace Church and focused exclusively on building and leading Dare 2 Share. The last ten years have been a time of explosive growth and tremendous trial for Dare 2 Share. Yes, we went from averaging a thousand attendees per event to well over four thousand but, no, it was not without a large helping of pain and suffering.

To be completely blunt, the last three years of economic stress almost took us down. As a ministry that is extremely dependent on God to provide through mostly large financial gifts our development efforts took massive hits starting in October of 2008. Over the next two years we had to do reduce our staff count (a horrifically painful process) to half the size. We were forced to cut every ministry program that was not absolutely necessary to accomplish the goal of energizing a generation to evangelize their world.

I honestly didn’t know if we were going to make it through this difficult stretch. Out of desperation prayer skyrocketed to the top of my priority list and I, along with our leaders at Dare 2 Share, began begging God for provision and wisdom. Again and again he provided…just in the nick of time.

Over the last 12 months or so we’ve seen a stabilization of our ministry (praise God!) and have experienced some much needed ministry momentum on several levels. As the dust of the financial crisis has settled I can now look back more clearly and begin to see what God was, not only doing through us, but in us. During this time he taught me some very valuable leadership lessons.

To add to this perspective last week the staff surprised me with a celebration of my twentieth year at the helm of Dare 2 Share. Today, I look back and ponder the most important leadership lessons God has taught me over the last two decades. I am honored to share them with you.

Leadership Lesson #1 Prayer must not be our last resort, but our first priority.

Embarrassingly I must admit that for the first seventeen years of Dare 2 Share I used prayer as a kind of holy water to sprinkle on my white board strategies. Sure I would pray, but not as if my life and ministry depended on it. Instead of utter desperation there was simply an uttered supplication at the beginning and/or end of our strategy meetings. It was my perfunctory petition that was delivered to the throneroom of God but it was not the passionate, persistent plea of a beggar who would not stop knocking on the door of heaven until it was opened. My knuckles did not start to bleed until late 2008. It was then I became a desperate man.

Oh how I wished I would have learned the lesson of passionate prayer twenty years ago! Oh how much time has been wasted on strategies that were good but not great because I had failed to lay hold of the mind of God through prayer!

I’m forty six years old as I type these words. I feel like for forty three years I’ve been throwing dirt clods at Satan. Only in the last three years have I discovered the bazooka in the closet called Prayer.

Say hello to my little friend.

Leadership Lesson #2: Whittle your mission down to one thing and obsessively focus on getting it done.

How easy it is to get a fat mission statement while running a lean budget, especially in the world of non profit ministries! Why? Because there’s so much good that needs to be done! But when we settle for the good we forfeit the great. Unknowingly, with no ill intent or malice, we had succumbed to that very trap at Dare 2 Share. Our mission had morphed from evangelism training to evangelism and discipleship training. Just four years ago our mission statement was, “training teenagers to know, live, share and own their faith.”

It was just three and a half years ago that the chairman of the Dare 2 Share board was skimming our one page strategic plan when he suddenly blurted, “We have four bull’s eyes and we only have one arrow!” I asked what he meant and he explained that a ministry our size could never tackle the huge goal of helping teenagers to know AND live AND share AND own their faith. He, with the complete backing of the board, told our leadership team to go back and reconstruct our mission statement around one of those four priorities.

The process took six full months and many painful discussions but, with God’s guidance, we were able to develop a mission statement that was our one thing, “mobilizing teenagers to relationally and relentlessly reach their generation for Christ.” This singular statement contains both our mission and our philosophy. It embodies what we want to do (mobilize teenagers for evangelism), how we want to do it (relationally and relentlessly) and why we exist.

The great evangelist, DL Moody said, “Give me a man who says ‘this one thing I do’ and not ‘those fifty things I dabble in.’” What’s true of men and women is also true of ministries and churches. We need to find the one thing God has called us to and obsessively do it for his glory and in his power.

3. Never underestimate the value of building the right team.

If it wasn’t for Debbie Bresina, our Executive VP of Ministry Advancement, and the teams she leads, I would be preaching to church crowds not arena crowds (not that there’s anything wrong with that.) If it wasn’t for Dave Teraberry, our VP of Operations and Administration, and the teams he leads, Dare 2 Share would be an organizational mess and not a finely tuned ministry. From our passionate Ministry Advocates to our highly skilled Data Integrity specialists to all of our excellent teams, God has blessed Dare 2 Share with people who love God, embrace our mission and have the skills to get their jobs done with excellence.

In our early years Dare 2 Share’s hiring process had to do with whether or not you had a pulse and were willing to work for pennies. We’ve finally graduated to nickels and dimes on a pay scale and our hiring process has intensified dramatically as well. We do background checks as if we were hiring for the CIA, competency checks as if we were hiring for NASA, theology checks as if were hiring for a seminary, integrity checks as if we were hiring for a church and work ethic checks as if we were hiring for a construction crew. The pay is not great but the benefits are out of this world (literally!)

And once you are a part of the Dare 2 Share team you join an exciting and demanding fraternity of fanatics. There are daily prayer times with your team and weekly chapel times with the entire staff. We have quarterly celebrations based on what God has done over the previous three months and take time to thank God along the way for all that he has done. But there is another kind of fuel that keeps everyone moving and motivated as well…the stories.

At Dare 2 share we are blessed with an almost constant stream of stories from teenagers who have witnessed God do something amazing in them and/or through them as a result of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Youth leaders from across the nation keep us going with powerful anecdotes of teens heroically sharing the good news with friends, family, classmates and teammates. In spite of the hardships that inevitably come as a result of working in a high stress, results-driven ministry like Dare 2 Share, the stories of changed lives become our “tackling fuel” to keep us charging hard toward the finish line.

The value of building the right team has been a hard fought one for me personally. I don’t think I realized early on how important “getting the right people on the bus” (in the words of Jim Collins) was to the vitality of a ministry like ours. I am still discovering the importance of keeping the right people on the bus by providing the most stimulating and rewarding work atmosphere possible. As God enables us to do this more and more I believe we will be more and more effective in the accomplishment of the mission he has given us.

These are three of the lessons God has taught me over the last twenty years of ministry. My prayer is that they may encourage you in whatever ministry you are involved with as we labor together for his greater glory.