Fanning the Flame
Three Ways to Help the Next Generation Burn Brightly for Christ
Dr. Barry St. Clair
I would have made a terrible Boy Scout. I could never get a fire started. My son Jonathan, however, is just the opposite. With the zeal of a pyromaniac, he observed me as I tried to start a fire in our fireplace one afternoon. “Dad, you have to blow on the flame,” he said. “That’s the only way you can get the fire white hot.” In no time, the fire was roaring.
White hot! Jonathan’s words made me think of the ember that is glowing among the younger generation today. I believe it will turn into a roaring, white-hot flame of spiritual awakening. God has done it before, and He desires to do it again. And He has given us adults in the church the awesome privilege of blowing on the flame so that it will burn with greater and greater intensity.
In Campus Aflame, J. Edwin Orr observed three characteristics of spiritual awakenings:
• Young people provide the spark. In eight out of ten major awakenings, God has used students as the spark. All signs indicate that He’s doing this again. In 30 years of youth ministry, I have never seen teens so “on fire” for God.
• Extraordinary prayer ignites the flame. A great movement of God’s Spirit is always preceded by beyond-the-norm prayer. And prayer is the fuse that’s been lit among today’s youth, consuming their generation as it moves through.
• Personal holiness adds fuel to the fire. God uses changed lives–from internal motivations to external behaviors–to impact the world. As God changes the students of this generation, they are gaining a new awareness of the Holy Spirit and an understanding of how God can use them.
God is raising a generation that is poised to become “white hot.” What can we do to fan these young people into the fullness of His plans? Exodus 33 provides an example of how God used His people as “flame-blowers” for the younger generation.
1. Invest in discipling relationships with
young people.
Moses spent time with Joshua, taught him, cared for him, encouraged him, and
showed him how to walk with God. When God spoke to Moses face to face, Joshua,
his young aide, was right there to experience it all (Ex. 33:11).
Most youth ministries today have lost sight of the value of discipling teenagers. We run programs for them. We entertain them. We baby-sit them. But they still get drunk, get pregnant, and act rebelliously at about the same rate as the kids we don’t work with. Our young people deserve more. They deserve a caring adult to love them; relate to them; and talk to them about sex, drugs, violence, and the hurts in their lives.
Lee was a high school junior when he joined my first discipleship group. I wasn’t sure how to lead a discipleship group, so for 12 weeks he and the other students endured my lectures. I didn’t understand that getting to know them was crucial to the process. Four weeks after we finished, I heard that Lee was attending confirmation classes at the Jewish synagogue–which hadn’t exactly been my objective for the group! I met with him and discovered that he had never even received Jesus. Through the rest of his high school years, I invested myself in him, and during that time he made a decision for Christ.
Today, Lee is editor of Charisma magazine. He called me on Thanksgiving night several years ago. “Barry,” he said, “I will be eternally thankful for the investment you made to disciple me.” No investment, I decided, can pay a higher dividend than those words!
As “the Moses generation,” we have the privilege of investing in “the Joshua generation.” Is there some young “Joshua” you could be discipling?
2. Increase extraordinary prayer for and by
young people.
Moses established a meeting tent outside the camp for “anyone inquiring of the
LORD.” God’s presence, the pillar of cloud, stayed at the entrance of the
tent when “the LORD spoke with Moses.” While this happened, the people all
stood and worshiped (Ex. 33:9-10).
This is the kind of “extraordinary prayer” that helps the younger generation experience the presence and power of God. J. Edwin Orr tells of a 16-year-old who was “awkward . . . gangling . . . and with an inelastic and croaking voice.” His campus was a place “where wine and liquor . . . profanity, gambling and [immorality] were common.” This student and five of his friends met in a field every day to pray. Forced to take shelter from the rain one day under a haystack, the group became known as “the Haystack Prayer Meeting.” The year was 1795. The 16-year-old was Samuel Mills. Within a brief time, one-third to one-half of the students at Williams, Dartmouth, Yale, Amherst, and Princeton turned to Christ, and more than 20,000 students volunteered as missionaries. God used the prayers of five young men in a hay field to begin the foreign missionary movement in America!
Today’s generation has this same kind of zeal. I recently met Josh, a sophomore from Denver, Colorado, who began “The God Movement” at his school. He and his friends meet to pray for their friends and their school. They invite others to join them. Ten schools in the Denver area have followed suit. Now God has burdened them to begin “The God Movement” at every school in the city.
What “extraordinary prayers” can you offer up for “the Joshua generation”? How can you equip and mobilize them to become extraordinary pray-ers themselves?
3. Illustrate holiness for young people.
Moses knew that God’s presence was the only thing that distinguished him and
the Israelites “from all the other people on the face of the earth.” God had
made it clear to Moses that “I am pleased with you and I know you by name”
(Ex. 33:15-17).
Ask average teenagers today what it means to be a Christian. Their response: “Be good . . . go to church.” They think personal holiness is living up to a standard, and they either get frustrated and give up or lower the standard, so they can feel more comfortable. They rarely understand that personal holiness is not external behavior, but an intimate relationship with Jesus born out of God’s grace. Personal holiness is “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).
As “the Moses generation,” we have the
privilege of investing in “the Joshua generation.”
How can you share this understanding of personal holiness with the younger
generation? It’s all linked together: The “Joshua generation” will see it
more clearly when the “Moses generation” invests in them through
discipleship and prays for them.
I’ve been thinking about what it means for me
to be a “flame-blower” for this generation. And I’ve found that it begins
by praying every day: “Jesus, draw a circle around me and light a fire in that
circle.” God will take it from there.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Resources on Prayer
Two books by Barry St. Clair, An Awesome Way to Pray and its accompanying Leaders Guide help students move from occasional prayer to consistent prayer, spend daily time with Jesus, implement the Prayer Triplets strategy and engage lost friends in conversations about Christ. Click here to order.
About the Author
BARRY ST. CLAIR is the head of Reach Out Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia. Though
Reach Out is an international ministry that trains youth leaders in all aspects
of youth work, Barry has always had a heart for prayer. He currently serves on
America’s National Prayer Committee and is working with Pray! to begin
producing a four-page insert for teens that will encourage and train them in
prayer issues.
Permissions
This article was originally published in Pray! Magazine, found at http://www.navpress.com/praymag.asp . Used by permission of Barry St. Clair.
