Dare 2 Share Insider 02

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Post your thoughts and ideas below by using the “Comments” or email me at jasonlamb@dare2share.org

Top 10 reasons I love working at Dare 2 Share

This was inspired by a similar blog post by Greg Stier.

1. Everyday when I go to work at Dare 2 Share I know that what I do will have an impact on eternity.  I work for Jesus and not for man!
2. The people I work with are not just great co-workers and we’re not just on the “same team.”  We’re family!
3. Greg is bound to do or say something completely random that will make us laugh AT LEAST once a day.
4. What we are doing is making a difference.  More and more teenagers are trainined to share their faith and peer-to-peer evangelism on Middle School and High School campuses is happening.
5. When I travel for Dare 2 Share I meet Youth Leaders who are just as passionate about reaching teens as we are.
6. My boss Debb doesn’t just care about me but is personally invested in me.
7. I am challenged and convicted to keep personal evangelism a priority in my own life.
8. My team of Ministry Advocates cares for the Youth Leaders they work with & for the teens in those Youth Leaders’ ministries AND they get better at what they do everyday.
9. We have chapel every Wednesday for an hour.  How cool is it that we get to pray, worship, and learn together as a ministry?!?!?
10. Two things I have fun doing, Math and Ministry, collide to make my job exciting.  (When my wife Neva worked here she had nicknamed me “Rainman,” and even though she is at home with our two boys Christian & Brayden the nickname has stuck.)

D&W: persuade

By the name of this post some of you may already be a little leary as to what you are about to read.  Persuade is a pretty strong word.  Some people in Christian circles don’t even like using the word as it conjures up images of pushy car salesman or invasive telemarketers that call in the middle of dinner.  Unfortunately this word does come with negative baggage.  However, it doesn’t change what we find in scriptures (NLT):

• Acts 17:4 – Some of the Jews who listened were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with many God-fearing Greek men and quite a few prominent women.
• Acts 28:23 – So a time was set, and on that day a large number of people came to Paul’s lodging. He explained and testified about the Kingdom of God and tried to persuade them about Jesus from the Scriptures. Using the law of Moses and the books of the prophets, he spoke to them from morning until evening.
• 2 Corinthians 5:11 – Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord, we work hard to persuade others. God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this, too.

Persuade = sharing your faith!

The word persuade describes how we are supposed to reach out to those who don’t know Jesus Christ.  2 Corinthians 5:11 makes the strongest case for it in mind.  It decribes sharing our faith with those who don’t know Christ as our “fearful responsibility to God” and affirms that it is a sincere persuasion. 

So who have you persuaded lately with the power of the Gospel?  Have you challenged your teen to identify one lost friend that they need to relationally and relentlessly share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with?  Don’t be intimidated by the nature of the word “persuade.”  Be persuaded by the power of the Gospel!

D&W: pray

So prayer may sound like something that is more focused on worship vs. discipleship or evangelism.  And I really wouldn’t argue that point.  It does make sense and prayer is definitely a way that we worship God assuming our prayers are interactive (2-way communication) instead of me posting my concerns to God and saying Amen.  Prayer is vital to my worship of God.

Prayer is also a powerful tool when it comes to evangelism.  I would go so far as to say that evangelism that is not fueled by prayer probably sets the stage for the most ineffective evangelism effort one could pursue.  Essentially, you have stacked the cards against yourself.  As you continue to push your teens to share their faith and reach their lost friends for Christ, be sure that their efforts are rooted in prayer. 

Idea – have your teens start praying for a list of their friends who don’t know Christ.  It may just be 1 friend, it could be many more than that.  Simply have them start praying for those friends now.

• Pray for their salvation. 
• Pray for insights into how they can relationally & relentlessly reach them with the Gospel. 
• Pray for their campus and the school year (you don’t have to wait until See You at the Pole). 
• Pray for their Youth Ministry. 

Could you imagine how amazing our Youth Ministries would be and how effective our teens could be if they bathed this next school year, the Dare 2 Share Blaze conference tour, and their friends in prayer starting now? 

Pray!

Follow-up Post to a verse a month…

So every since I posted the D&W Idea of the week about memorizing a verse a month I have been convicted to memorized God’s Word myself.  I still advocate that our teens need to memorize scripture as it is my perception that this is a fading discipline in the church.  That being said, I need to memorize scripture as well for my personal spiritual benefit as well as owning my responsibility and setting the pace for teens that I influence in my small group and the Youth Ministry at Northern Hills.

All of that to say, you should notice a new feature in the upper right hand corner of the Deep & Wide blog page entitled, “MEMORY VERSE FOR JUNE.”  Each month I will provide a new memory verse and invite you to join me in memorizing that verse.

This month’s verse is Ezekiel 33:7, “Now, son of man, I am making you a watchman for the people of Israel. Therefore, listen to what I say and warn them for me.”  It was inspired by today’s Dare 2 Share chapel that Greg share with our staff. 

Beyond memorizing this scripture, my prayer is that I will heed the words of James and apply this to my life as well (James 1:22).