How can we reach young people with the Gospel? How can we make it available to them in a way they can understand? How can we reach all those young people that have never set foot in a church?
An incredible dream
These were the burning questions that led to the founding of Jesus Revolution in 1997.
God filled our hearts with an incredible dream: To make Jesus available to the youth of Europe. We were longing to introduce young people to the life transforming gospel, the good news about salvation in Jesus Christ.
We began with evangelistic youth events, and hundreds of young people in different cities responded to the call of salvation. People all around asked what this was. The answer was simple. A Jesus revolution! If anything is a revolution, it is when the love of God fills our hearts, our sins are forgiven, we are new creations, and we go from darkness to light!
Everywhere we went, we also challenged youth to get involved in reaching out to other European youth with the love of Christ, and thousands responded by volunteering as “soldiers” in this “army of love” for some weeks, months or years. “Making running paths for young people” became an essential component of the Jesus Revolution vision. The work was not going to be done through a few special ministers, but rather through training, releasing, and sending ordinary young people believing in the God of the impossible!
The gospel works! The Jesus Revolution teams were sent to more than 750 cities, preaching the gospel to hundreds of thousands of young people, seeing tens of thousands of people seek salvation and receive healing in Jesus’ name.
A need for a change
Around 2006 we sensed the Lord directing us to work in a different way. Happy as we were with all the youth who had been reached, we felt a major change coming to the work that God had entrusted us.
Was there a way we could work more effectively? How could more people hear the Gospel? How could we better serve the needs of the local church? How could we see a lasting impact, and how could we see youth groups changed from being introverted and timid, to become soul-winners and disciple-makers? Could there be a way to minister in which the impact of this work would not be limited to our available resources?
Based on our experiences of ministry to youth in 30 nations, this led us to the ultimate question: How could we make the Jesus Revolution work and vision available for local churches? Then, how could we transfer this entire work to national churches and movements?
This began a process that led to a complete restructuring of Jesus Revolution. We ended many of our activities and started developing the multiplication of Jesus Revolution locally and nationally. We also perceived that the Lord had called us not only to the youth of Europe. It was going to be about the youth of the world!
As we sought the Lord for his wisdom, we realized that the first years of Jesus Revolution had served to form a prototype that we were now going to pass on. Our focus shifted from the ministry we could do, to what tools, knowledge and resources we could give to the youth of the local churches, empowering them to reach out on a permanent basis, through a Jesus Revolution group.
Our vision became: “The gospel to the youth of the world, through Jesus Revolution groups in local churches, preaching Christ and making disciples.”