Purpose
96%…the estimated number of youth in our area that will never know Jesus Christ in their life.
96%…the estimated number of youth who will walk by the four walls of our churches but choose to reject the Message that is only footsteps away.
96%…the estimated number of youth that our individual youth ministries will fail to effectively reach in this generation.
How could this be? Why is this number so astronomically high? Is there nothing that can be done to turn the tide of death in our generation? We believe there is…
For too long this area has been marked and ruled by the enemy. New England is known as “rocky soil” and too hard to reach. No single youth group can possibly make a difference in the lives of the youth in the area. Just walk through the public schools and you will hear the screams of hatred and abhorrence toward our Christ. What could our one youth ministry do to even put a dent in the enemy’s gates, the answer…NOT MUCH!
We have been the victims of Satan’s oldest strategy in warfare, divide and conquer…
It is time we did something about it! It is time to break down the man-made walls of denomination that have separated us for so long! It is time to come together as Christ himself prayed in John 17:23… “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You loved Me.”
We bought into the lie. (And by “we” I do mean all of us). The lie that the important things in this world are statements of faith and pointless arguments over doctrine. Basically the things that Christ denounced the Pharisees for…
But we neglected the commands of Christ to make disciples of our Jerusalem and because of that our generation suffers. We suffer from split families and drug abuse, from sexual depravity and unbridled violence.
This is not sensationalism. This is reality. It is confirmed by turning on the evening news or watching a popular t.v. show. WE MUST COME TOGETHER FOR THE SAKE OF THIS GENERATION, FOR THE SAKE OF SOUTHERN MAINE!
Jesus Christ is calling us to throw down this spirit of Fear, and that is exactly what it is. We are dominated by fear. Fear of other churches stealing our youth, fear of infiltration of unwanted music and trends, fear of bad influences, the list goes on and on. But “God has not given us a Spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” Why? So we can be powerful in our effectiveness, so we can love unconditionally, and so we can be self-disciplined enough to overcome the enemy. We will overcome the enemy!
But today is the day. We must UNITE as lovers of Jesus, we must UNITE as Christian youth who want to see changes in the statistics, we must UNITE as Great Commission people who long to see more disciples of Christ in our youth ministries, we must UNITE! IT CANNOT BE DONE BY INDIVIDUAL CHURCHES, or we would have been more effective already. One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We will change strategies. Unity is the key.
We will UNITE. We will lay down the pride that has kept us bound for so long. It is time to fight back. To go on the offensive instead of having a holy huddle inside the four walls of our individual churches. Synergy is the interaction of two or more forces so that their combined effort is greater that the sum of their individual efforts. In our synergy the kingdom of God will be forcefully advanced in southern Maine.