Home Christian News Skillet Brings the Fire—Literally—at Winter Jam; Cooper Warns Against Fake Christianity

Skillet Brings the Fire—Literally—at Winter Jam; Cooper Warns Against Fake Christianity

“Praise God,” Black said. “Please do not ever feel like what you’re doing does not matter.”

Winter Jam’s main focus isn’t just music but sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone in attendance. The Columbus, Ohio, stop on the tour saw close to 300 people acknowledge publicly that they made a decision for Christ.

Shane Pruitt is this year’s main speaker. Pruitt, who is the North American Mission Board’s National Next Gen Director, told the youth leaders how much he values what they do. “I believe God is going to do something with Generation Z. At the events that I’ve preached at in the last two years, I’ve seen more young people, young adults, college students, and teenagers flat out get saved in the last two years than probably the last previous five to six years of ministry combined—we started calling (Gen Z) a revival generation.”

World-renowned evangelist and founder of Pulse (an organization that aims to bring the hope of Jesus to the next generation), Nick Hall, shared with the youth leaders, “I have felt more than ever that people need Jesus. I don’t know if it has ever been more evident.” Hall has been sharing Jesus with people since he made the decision to follow Christ himself at a young age, and he explained that when things are hard in the world, people are more open to hearing the good news of Jesus. Hall gave a simple way to share the gospel with others, as well as a testimony of how he did so the night before.

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This summer, Hall is organizing a large evangelistic event in remembrance of Explo ’72, which will take place at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas and is called Together ’22. Explo ’72 was an evangelistic conference hosted by Campus Crusade for Christ in 1972 at the Cotton Bowl and featured Billy GrahamJohnny Cash, Larry Norman, and Kris Kristofferson. The goal of the conference was to train young people to share the gospel and encourage them to go into some type of Christian ministry. On June 24th and 25th of this year, Together ’22 will encourage an entire generation of young people to meet with Jesus and be equipped to share the gospel throughout the world.

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Cooper Tells Youth Leaders ‘We Have A Lot of Work Ahead of Us’

Cooper agreed with Pruitt’s assessment that Gen Z is on the verge of revival, calling the world that we live in today “unrecognizable.” The rocker used to be a youth minister before Skillet went full time as a band. Cooper said, “If I wasn’t doing Skillet, I think I would have gone into youth ministry, because I have a passion for this age group. This is where we have to win these kids.” Cooper expressed his gratitude to God for allowing him to be in Skillet, and he recognized how hard youth ministry is.

Whether it’s with Skillet, Cooper’s Podcast, or writing a book (Awake & Alive to Truth), Cooper said that he’s on a “mission to declare war against this apostasy in the progressive Christian movement, the Christian deconstruction movement, and the redefining Jesus-to-be-whoever-you-want-him-to-be subjectivism movement. I hate it. I hate what it’s done to these young people. They do not understand who Jesus is, but they like the feeling of saying they do.”

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“We have a lot of work ahead of us to teach [them the truth],” Cooper expressed to youth leaders. “They truly are growing up with such a different worldview. We have to start over with what truth even is. That’s the mission that Skillet is on.”