3. Pursue nonlegalistic, grace-drenched holiness together.
“’Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.’ In a large house ,there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use. Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.” 2 Timothy 2:19-21
God only serves revival on clean plates. So scour your soul and keep all your 10 percenters encouraged and accountable to do the same. We must be fighting the good fight of holiness together. Let’s keep our talk, habits and hearts pure. When we do this, God will be inclined to use us to start a movement of transformation in our communities.
But do this in a grace-filled way. I read accounts of some of the great men of God in earlier awakenings who longed to see revival so much that their well-intentioned pursuit turned into a guilt-filled drudgery.
Just two days ago, I read this account in Tullian Tchividjan’s must-read book One Way Love, about a man of God who pursued revival, but got frustrated by his own apathy:
“Samuel Johnson, the great eighteenth-century thinker and writer, documented in his diary his efforts over the years to fight sloth by getting up early in the morning to pray. He wrote:
1738: Oh, Lord, enable me to redeem the time which I have spent in sloth.
1757: Oh, mighty God, enable me to shake off sloth and redeem the time misspent in idleness and sin by diligent application of the days yet remaining.
1759: Enable me to shake off idleness and sloth.
1761: I have resolved until I have resolved that I am afraid to resolve again.
1764: My indolence since my last reception of the sacrament has sunk into grossest sluggishness. My purpose is from this time to avoid idleness and to rise early.”
As you pursue holiness with your 10 percenters, remember, it should be fueled by grace, not by guilt. We are called to a happy holiness, not a sour sanctification. The joy of our salvation should drive the excitement of our sanctification!
4. Inspire and equip your teenagers to clearly share the gospel.
One characteristic of every revival is that it explodes externally into the community around it. The gospel advances through on-fire teenagers and youth leaders into classrooms, cliques and school cafeteria tables.
Are you relentlessly challenging your teenagers to share the gospel? Have you equipped them to do just that? Is the gospel you’re presenting good news or has it been muddied up by terms that are unclear or inaccurate?
Dare 2 Share conferences do a great job of inspiring your teenagers, and our free mobile app and other resources can help equip your teens to effectively evangelize.
A key way of inspiring your teens to evangelize is to tell stories of changed lives in every youth group meeting. Have teens share stories of how the gospel changed their lives or how God is using them to change the lives of their friends through the gospel. In my opinion, every youth group meeting should have at least one story of how the gospel is changing lives.
If God provides the spark for revival, then stories provide the fuel to keep it burning. (This is why we love the book of Acts by the way … it’s full of these kinds of stories!!!)
5. Don’t just make converts, but make disciples who make disciples.
The goal is not to just get a bunch of teenagers to say “yes” with their mouths, but to say “yes” in their hearts. We must equip our 10 percenters to lead other teenagers to Jesus, and then equip the ones who do to grow and go as well. This discipleship multiplication starts with evangelism, but culminates in new believers multiplying more new believers.
How do we do this? We get the new believers equipped in evangelism right away (along with the other spiritual disciplines!). Yes, we want to get them growing, but the best way to do that is to get them going. We must get them going to their friends, family, classmates, teammates and co-workers with the good news.
The first thing that happened to those who were baptized with the Holy Spirit in the upper room in Acts 2 is that their tongues were set on fire with the gospel message. As a result, 3,000 were added to their number that day. When our teenagers have a chance to lead someone to Jesus, they should immediately be equipped to share this life-changing message with others.
Too often, churches are tempted to just put them in a 12-week course that ends up exegeting the excitement to evangelize right out of them. Yes, they need sound doctrine. Of course they need to learn key components of the Christian life. But they can learn these on the way as they are sharing the good news of Jesus with those they know.
If this post gets you excited and you want more, if you want a way to inspire and equip your 10 percenters to go all in for Jesus and start living this revival out, take a look at bringing them to Lead THE Cause University this summer. It’s six days of intensive revival training that you need to get your student leaders to.
But don’t wait for LTCU. Start putting these principles into practice now.
It’s time for revival and it starts with you choosing to lead the way!
Viva LA Cause!
