Reaching Youth for Christ

Father, I pray that You will work among Your people through this testimony. That You will open our eyes to the snares of Satan, and that You will show us how to reach the Youth and win them not just for time but for eternity. O Eternal Father, Your Son Jesus died to buy these youth back from the grasp of the enemy. For His blood and Your honor I ask that my words would be attended by the Holy Spirit’s power to convict and that sinners would be converted unto Thee. I claim your promise in Revelation 12:11 “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives unto death.” Thank You, Father, for hearing and answering our prayer more abundantly than we could ever ask or think.

As I stepped out of the little red and white mission plane that had carried me miles into the jungle, to begin 9 months as a student missionary at a remote school for indigenous young people, I was excited. I loved the environment, I loved the people. I loved the culture. After years of reading mission stories, I had become a cross-cultural missionary. Little did I realize as I gazed in wide-eyed wonder at the tropical beauty all around me that I had stepped onto a battle field where a fierce conflict was already in progress for the souls the people that I was longing for Christ to save. In the next few months I would face a struggle that would test the foundation of my faith, shake my confidence in myself, and reveal to me the tactics by which the enemy is seeking to destroy a generation of souls for whom Christ died.

The year before my mission experience had brought my walk with God to an all time high. The Holy Spirit had led me to cherish the Word of God as my most precious treasure. I delighted in memorizing the promises of God’s word and claiming them as my own. I loved the Lord and I wanted everyone else to love Him too. But there was much for which I was unprepared. The foundation of my faith must be tested.

Shortly after I arrived, a fellow staff member and I had a conversation about the best way to reach the young people for Christ. The discussion was on music. The music that had long been taught at the school was our precious advent hymns. I love these hymns and strongly recommended that we continue using them. But other members of the staff pointed out that the hymns were of no benefit if the students could not understand them. [Many of our students spoke a tribal dialect as their mother tongue and had learned English later in life. They often struggled to understand even simple English.] I saw their point and wasn’t sure what could be done about this. So when some of the staff and some of the students, especially one young man that I was close to, started bringing in praise songs, I kept quiet. I didn’t like them myself, but I was willing to use whatever it took to bring the children to Jesus.

As the year progressed the music became gradually louder, with stronger more pronounced rhythms, more syncopated, and more worldly. Two occasions stood out in my mind. The first was the night we went “Christmas Caroling” in the village. The song leader was a young man from a Pentecostal background. His choice of music and the sensual way in which the songs were performed began to affect me physically. My thought became more and more immoral. Although I tried to restrain them, I seemed powerless to resist the hormones flooding through my body in response to the syncopated rhythms of the music. I knew better than to participate in this kind of music. From a child I had been raised to discern the difference between good and bad music, music that led to purity and holiness and that which led to sensuality and impurity. Yet I had never been tested on musical principals before. Attracted to classical music, I had not personally dealt with the issues in the Contemporary Christian Music World. I was unprepared for this test. Conscience smitten, but unwilling to take a stand, I floundered through several months of moral struggles, desperate prayers for deliverance, and confusion as to why I could not gain the victory. Yet Strange as it seems now, I didn’t make a clear connection between the music and my moral struggles until later.

I will never forget the night of the Christmas party. Staff and students were gathered in the library making paper snowflakes, talking and laughing. It might have been a profitable time, but the background music was not uplifting. Again I found myself struggling with immoral thoughts. What was happening? One male student confided to me, “Miss, I thought this school would close tomorrow because they are playing this music.” Even the students were shocked at the music we as staff were playing. I was deeply disturbed, but again I said nothing. My own compromise and fear of what others would think had sealed my lips. I was being swept along, closer and closer to the edge of oblivion. As the night progressed, the students were dismissed to their dorms and most of the staff settled in for a few hours of relaxation. My moral strength was giving way and I knew it. Disconnected from Christ by my choice to compromise, I was walking on dangerous ground. Desperately I sought a quiet corner and cried out to God. Help! His still small voice in my heart echoed the words of a familiar hymn, “Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide...” I knew that this was my time to choose between sin and salvation. If I hesitated it could mean eternal loss. I shot out of the building, vaguely hearing the calls of my fellow staff members asking what was wrong. It was rude to leave like that, but I didn’t have the strength to explain. God had snatched me from the brink of a precipice. Looking back I shudder at what might have happened had I lingered. Praise the Lord for His unspeakable goodness to the chief of sinners.

Although my struggles were emotional rather than physical, there came a time when I could not longer hide my lack of victory. Confused, ashamed and desperately in need of help, I turned to God and to His promised that had been such a strength to me. There I found the consolation that “all things work together for good to them that love God.” I surrendered my life to Him again, confessed my sin, and gave the whole situation to Him to work together for good as only He could. From that time a change came over my life and my mission experience. Reconnected with my source of strength, I began once again to grow in grace and to reflect His likeness to fellow staff and students. Slowly as I was able to bear it, my Heavenly Father began to reveal to me the cause of my defeat and the secret of His victory in soul winning.

In my prayer and study time, God has led me to a secret, a Biblical principal which is a secret to victory in the cause of God, but misunderstood is the cause of many a defeat. It is found in these verses. “And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and [that] he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Matthew 18:5-6. As a missionary, I sought to receive the youth I worked with and point them to Jesus. I was eager not to offend them, but I was using the world’s definition of offense “To give displeasure or offense to; displease; anger” [from the New International Webster’s Compact Dictionary of the English Language]. Not wanting to displease my students and fellow staff I was reluctant to confront them even when I saw that their behavior was causing moral struggles for me and others. I was not willing to rebuke sin for fear of displeasing someone. But what did Jesus mean when He warned against offending one of these little ones? I was amazed to discover that the word translated offend in Matthew 18:6 literally means “To'scandalize'; … to entrap, that is, trip up (figuratively stumble [transitively] or entice to sin, apostasy or displeasure)” [Strongs Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries]. What a difference this meaning makes. While trying to avoid hurt feelings, I was leading my students into sin by condoning music that fostered immorality. How tragic, yet I believe that my merciful Heavenly Father is working this experience together for good. I am not alone is this misunderstanding. I pray that by my testimony many may avoid the offence of sin that is taking a generation of young people away from God, truth, and purity.

My friend, are you, as I was, longing to win youth for Christ. Are you eager to win their hearts, to be sensitive to their needs, to create a worship experience that will not offend them? I plead with you to take the time to study the music principals contained in this site. Surrender your preferences, likes and dislikes, and preconceived ideas to God. Give up on yourself. Surrender your all to God. Allow the truth of His word to be your guiding light. He will lead you gently as He led me. He will show you how to stand for truth in the meekness and tenderness of our Savior. The way may not be easy, but you will have the eternal reward of souls saved eternally, the joy of uninterrupted communion with your Savior, and the assurance that you have offended no man, for you have not led any to sin through your words or example. May God help us to be faithful to Him and to our calling as witnesses to His young people is my prayer. Amen

Ezekiel 36:23 And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I [am] the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.