A few years ago a handful of teenagers, a Missions pastor (Dave Gibson) and your’s truly met at a Ruby Tuesdays in February for a post Dare 2 Share conference food-fest. Little did we know that God had a bigger agenda.
It was there that this handful of teenagers began to decide to pray more passionately for revival at their school (Eden Prairie High School), drive gospel conversations more intentionally and culminate the school year with some kind of after school hours (but in the school auditorium) outreach event. These teens, under the leadership of a mission’s pastor, eventually dubbed it “My Story” The result of their prayer, passion and persistence? An event which saw about 90 teenagers making a decision for Jesus!
This number doesn’t reflect the countless gospel conversations that took place leading up to this culminating event. Heaven knows how many put their faith in Jesus as a result of these teenagers unashamedly sharing the hope of Jesus to their peers in the school cafeteria, on the football field and via text messaging!
Fast forward a few years…
Another My Story event took place just a month or so ago at Eden Prairie High School once again. This time I had the privilege of participating. It was amazing. There was great music from XROSS, a hilarious and impacting talk by Steve Fitzhugh and testimonies from a couple members of the Minnesota Vikings.
But, to me, the most powerful part of the night were the testimonies from the teenagers themselves. They shared their stories during the My Story event. They testified to their fellow classmates how Jesus transformed their lives. When the gospel was given many put their faith in Jesus as a result!
When Dave Gibson shared the results of the “My Story” event during the church service that Sunday morning a handful of students in the audience were motivated to do their own My Story event at their high school in Bloomington. What’s amazing is that they decided to go for this event with just a few weeks left of school! But they began praying and planning for it and God came through in a big, big way.
To give you a glimpse of what took place in Bloomington just over a week and a half ago here’s a short video called “My Story B-Town”….
My prayer is that the holy passion that is fueling the teenagers at Eden Prairie and Bloomington High will help many other youth groups across the Twin Cities and eventually the nation to catch the fire of Christ’s Cause!
The My Story event has triggered some school year long “what if’s” in my mind…
What if these same principles could be used to reach an entire school in one school year? What if you kicked off your school year with a huge See You At The Pole rally? What if you challenged the teenagers there to start praying everyday for revival? Throughout the school year what if teenagers used the Life in 6 Words outreach books to create countless gospel conversations? And, last but not least, what if, in the last few weeks of school, these same teenagers pulled off some sort of “My Story” event?
This could become an ongoing comprehensive and effective outreach strategy equation:
SYATP + Gospel Conversations throughout the School year + End-of-Year “My Story” event = A School saturated with good news!
What if?
