New breed believer
Taking "reaching" to the next level in youth evangelism
The decision was so brash, so seemingly reckless, it excited me. The time had come for another generation and Pastor Horiuchi Akira in Yao (Osaka) decided to unleash young lives.1 He explained to the youth (junior through senior high) that they would be separated out of the regular worship to start their own fellowship. They were under the guidance of a church staff member, but basically they got to call the shots, own all the challenges and all the responsibilities. They rose to the occasion, naming their gathering “Youth Nation”. And suddenly growth started, spiritual and numerical. Over the years there were many ups and downs. But one thing for sure; they were never bored. In many fellowships, boredom could be fueling the exodus of young lives from the local church, but in Yao, they weren’t boring youth, they were launching them.
Spiritual quantum leap
The greatest window of opportunity in a life may be the 4–14 Window, a still relatively unfamiliar term coined in like manner to the 10–40 Window to help strategically focus ministry resources. The 10–40 Window is geographical, while the 4–14 is demographic. Statistics say that 70% of Christians respond to the Gospel between the ages of 4 and 14, so this time slot in life is viewed as the breakthrough decade of opportunity in ministry.2 However, the average church only invests 3% of its resources in this group.3 The questions we need to ask are: If our investment in that arena increased dramatically, what would the near, and distant, future look like? Do we want to change the spiritual climate in a society or nation rapidly? If we answer “yes”, then kids could be the greatest key to doing that.
For those in an “unreached field” or “unresponsive field” concentrating on the most responsive members of that region makes good sense. Big investments in the 4–14 Window can have huge ramifications for the church a decade or two down the road. If young people had been prioritized in the 80s or 90s in Japan, the church today would likely be significantly larger, far less gray, and not tottering on the cusp of a severe leadership crisis.
Unleashing destiny
So, in light of the 4–14 Window, every ministry directed at reaching children is high priority on the Kingdom scale. If limited time, energy, and resources constrain us to reaching only one group, would it not be rational to prioritize this age group?
But I am not content to stop with that. Reaching kids is good, but I venture there is something better: kids reaching kids, young people actively embracing the privilege of reaching their generation.
This was my foundational premise when I began the GospelShare Series, a series of peer-reach-peer personal evangelistic booklets. I was convinced that the best person to reach an individual was someone most like them, someone who understood them and spoke their same language. Of course all evangelism is good, but for impact you can’t match personal peer-to-peer.
So when it came to making the GospelShare Kids Version (a pocket-manga titled Treasure Hunt Challenge), we needed a tool not only for reaching young people, but also for kids to reach kids. Part of the beauty of it is that kids also had a part in making it. We involved dozens of under-14-year-olds in the field test version before it was published.
After the field test I would have been thrilled if half the the young people were optimistic, but was blown away that ninety percent indicated they wanted to share it with their friends! For decades we have wanted the right evangelistic tool for this age group. Now we have it and a ten-year old can easily lead a friend to Jesus.
This year we are even taking it a step further. We will be training youth to train kids to win kids—double discipleship of a new breed of believers.
Breakout potential
For many years I was missing it. There was a lot more at stake here than reaching young people. But thanks to them instructing me, I began to see this age group as far more than mere targets for evangelism, but agents of the gospel itself. This gentle “instruction” kept popping up here and there, but it was in Fukushima’s nuclear zone that it became clear.
My work in the disaster zones centered on training people for emotional care of survivors. In the early weeks, a key approach was a hand massage that included cognitive-behavioral readjustments and PTSD screening, as well as praying with evacuees—complicated stuff, but made simple so average people could do it, average adults, or so I thought.
In Iwaki one day, I trained some pastors to be able to practice this method. But, there was an unexpected presence. One of the pastor’s daughters was there, in her junior high school uniform. She observed everything, and she came along. We headed for the evacuation center and there, in that gymnasium, she did just what every pastor did, touched people and impacted lives. I suspect she was just as effective as any of the professional clergy that day. “Cool”, I thought, but then I was in for a bigger surprise.
One of my trainers did a training session south of the city of Fukushima. I re-emphasize: training adults to do emotional care. But one mother happened to have her kindergarten-aged son along. This little boy observed carefully what was happening in the training. Later when the trainees went to the evacuation center that boy stepped right in, taking the hand of survivors and giving a hand massage. To say it was heartwarming is an understatement. So did he do a perfect job? Not likely. Did he touch lives? You better believe it.
The funny thing is, although I wasn’t even there, I heard the report of this boy and it effected a change in my worldview. That change took root. Today, GospelShare Kids Version is in Japanese (トレジャーハントChallenge), and next year regional training sessions are being planned for mobilizing kids throughout the country. It is also published in English, and translated into Spanish, Chinese, Russian, even Khmer and Polish. Who is to say how far it may go and how many new-breed believers may come of it. I have a doctorate in spiritual formation, but the humbling reality is that I can trace this whole initiative back to the influence of a kindergartner following Christ in the nuclear zone. How unlikely is that? Maybe it shouldn’t be…
1. Grace Mission, an Evangelical Free church in Yao City
2. Compassion ministry video, “An Introduction to the 4/14 Window,” YouTube video, 2:59. Oct. 6, 2014. http://tinyurl.com/4-14window
3. Available from: www.newdaytoday.net/gospel/