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Mission Conference-2018
by Dave Veum
Every February during much of the last century, LB people from around North America and even the world came to my town for a mission conference sponsored by the Foreign Mission Society of Lutheran Brethren Schools. Speakers challenged us to give our lives to reach the lost of the world. Offerings were taken. Lots of coffee was imbibed.
That conference disappeared when the century changed. We still teach missions at LBS. We still send missionaries to Chad, Asia, and now Manhattan. But I have not since been in a large corporate setting to learn about and commit to reaching a lost world.
Until last week. I was in St. Louis with 15 youth leaders from CLB congregations attending the “National Youth Workers Conference” sponsored by Youth Specialties. I learned with 5,000 servants from around North America and the world about the lost world of teenagers attending our high schools and occasionally finding themselves in our youth groups.
Until last week. I was in St. Louis with 15 youth leaders from CLB congregations attending the “National Youth Workers Conference” sponsored by Youth Specialties. I learned with 5,000 servants from around North America and the world about the lost world of teenagers attending our high schools and occasionally finding themselves in our youth groups.
They are a generation unlike any other. Thirty percent of girls and 20% of boys ages 13-18 have an anxiety disorder. Still, they feel entitled. They have very different values from ours. They find truth claims offensive. In previous generations, home was the safe place to which a teenager could retreat from the pressures of school. Today the opposite is true.
This current generation of teenagers will soon be the culture. Reaching them requires us to do serious cross-cultural missionary work. It also requires love. Love for a generation that has no clue that there really is a God in heaven and that this God alone can give hope, meaning, and purpose to their lives. The National Youth Workers Conference prepares servants to reach them.
The picture above shows the print on the book bag I chose during convention registration. This is the message I pray will infiltrate our congregations and their leadership. Send your youth worker and even a volunteer to the 2019 convention. They will be encouraged. They will receive tools for ministry. They will learn what it means to be a cross-cultural missionary to the teenagers of North America and the world. Let them know, “We Got Your Back,” as they give their lives to reach a lost generation.
This current generation of teenagers will soon be the culture. Reaching them requires us to do serious cross-cultural missionary work. It also requires love. Love for a generation that has no clue that there really is a God in heaven and that this God alone can give hope, meaning, and purpose to their lives. The National Youth Workers Conference prepares servants to reach them.
The picture above shows the print on the book bag I chose during convention registration. This is the message I pray will infiltrate our congregations and their leadership. Send your youth worker and even a volunteer to the 2019 convention. They will be encouraged. They will receive tools for ministry. They will learn what it means to be a cross-cultural missionary to the teenagers of North America and the world. Let them know, “We Got Your Back,” as they give their lives to reach a lost generation.
