Reach Out And Touch Someone

Reach out and touch someone

I’m thankful to be with you here this morning and the only reason that I’m here today is because a church like this in the suburbs of Arvada reached out to me when I was an inner city kid from a broken family on 20th and Federal in Denver, at the time it was the highest crime rate area in Denver (and my family had something to do with that).

• You see I don’t come from a typical, Bible reading, church going.…

o Pastor Arnold was a pastor who was willing to get his hands dirty in city missions. He raised up an army of adults who were absolutely passionate about city missions as well.

o Jack (describe, salvation, sauna, Pastor Arnold put him to work doing city missions, running other bus off of the road)

o Bob (Silver Dollar Bar and Grill, Pastor Arnold put him to work doing city missions, taking the screen door off of it’s hinges)

o Mom (bat, lead her to Christ when I was fifteen, church put her to work)

o By the time I was fifteen Pastor Arnold had given me my own bus route and I was reaching out to the underprivileged children in our city, getting them out to church, giving them mentors and sharing Jesus.

o This one church invested in me and expected me to invest in others. Their investment in me came in the form of mentors. From the time I was a kid I can remember the mentors in my life, they all came from this same church in the suburbs.

 When I was in elementary school it was Renee Younger.

 When I was in Junior High it was Bill Adams.

 When I was in high school it was Mark Schweitzer.

• This one suburban church transformed this little inner city kid. As a result of this transformation I knew what I was going to do with my life. What I do now is equip teenagers all over the United States how to share gospel of Jesus Christ with their peers. This year we plan on training close to 40,000 teenagers in eight different events to share the gospel on their campuses and in their city.

o Did you know that according to George Barna 2 out of 3 teenagers will evacuate the church after they graduate from high school?

o Why? Because they are not owning their faith, they are borrowing it from their parents.

o Many churches have focused on entertaining teenagers instead of preparing them, equipping them and unleashing them to reach out to their campuses and their friends.

 Philemon 6

 Mormons

o Our events train and equip teenagers to understand the basic tenets of their Christianity and to reach their friends with the gospel of Jesus. We encourage youth leaders to start what we call “e-teams” (or evangelism teams) that give students a chance to reach their friends every week from the context of their own youth ministry.

 The average church sees 2 people come to Christ per year.

 The average e-team sees 5-10

o I believe that God wants to raise up an army of teenagers who will take their cities for Jesus Christ. I am convinced that teenagers are tired of the bland brand of Christianity that has been handed down to them. Millenniels want a more activistic, more revolutionary, more mission-driven type of Christianity that gets its hands dirty.

o Our goal is to train 1,000,000 teens and unleash 30,000 e-teams to reach every student on every campus with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

o By the way we are doing a conference at the Denver Coliseum on November 5th and 6th. We are expecting up to 8,000 teenagers. Last year we collected 18 tons of canned goods for the Denver Rescue Mission. This year we hope its 25 tons! We would love to have your teenager there and would love to have some of you adults come out and volunteer for the weekend. There’s a booth in the foyer on the way out where you could get more information about the Dare 2 Share Blaze conference.

• The Lord is opening up major doors for Dare 2 Share across the nation. It is our prayer that God will use it to launch a revival of Biblical proportions…

• BUT IT ALL STARTED WITH A CHURCH IN THE SUBURBS THAT REACHED OUT TO AN INNER CITY BOY WITH THE GOSPEL AND LOVE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!

And that’s what the church should be doing…reaching out to the helpless and the hurting, the widows and the fatherless with hope that only comes through Jesus!

James 1: 27 reminds us, “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles.”