You have heard all the demographic data before, but according to the best statistical information available we are doing an embarrassingly poor job of reaching the high school/college age group for Christ. In fact, many in that age group (sometimes referred to as the mosaic or millennial generation) who have grown up in the church are leaving it.

David Barton, president of Wallbuilders, stated, “It is the story of history that God uses the younger generation to revive and restore a nation that has fallen away. Therefore, the enemy often works to destroy youth before they can fulfill that destiny. It is no surprise, then, that today’s cultural terrorists have targeted youth for spiritual destruction.”

So, from almost every quarter people are asking, “How can we reach high school and college students for Christ?”

Evangelist Tony Nolan believes these students can be reached and is committed to reaching as many of them as possible. Driven by his passion for Christ, Nolan has targeted mosaics and by the grace and power of God he is reaching them by the tens of thousands.

Nolan has an interesting threefold strategy for reaching students in today’s culture. First, he explains, “Everyone says that in order to reach today’s students we must be relevant. I disagree. We are not called to be relevant, but we are called to be real.

“I operate from the standpoint that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. We’re not splitting atoms. We don’t have to make it difficult. We must just present the gospel to them.

“Second, We must depend on the Holy Spirit to empower us. If I try to present the gospel on my own power, I am going down in flames. Before I speak I prayerwalk the arena or auditorium where I speak, get down on my knees, and beg the Lord to do what only He can do.

“Third, I try to be transparent and make myself vulnerable. This generation can spot a phony from a mile away. I try to let them know I am a fellow human. I dance when nobody is looking. I cry at funerals. I salivate when I see desserts. I let them know I am human and God cleans up broken, messed-up lives, because that is what He did for me.”

Nolan is an evangelist from Florida and the co-founder, along with his wife Tammy, of TNT (Tony and Tammy) Ministries. The Nolans are members of First Baptist Church in Woodstock.

The Nolans have three children, Christy, 12, Wil, 10, and Bradly, 6. They give evidence of a happy and wholesome family. But the home Tony and Tammy have established stands in direct contrast to the kind of family life the evangelist knew as a child.

Nolan testifies that he was born to a homeless, mentally ill prostitute who was committed in a mental institution. Immediately after his birth he was placed in a foster home where he was abused mercilessly at the hands of his foster parents.

He reports, “For the first three years of my life I was repeatedly sexually abused, brutally beaten, thrown down flights of stairs for sport, and burned with cigarettes. At age three, a poor and dysfunctional family adopted me for only $200. My adoptive father would beat me and verbally abuse me on a regular basis. In drunken rages he would look at me in disgust and demand, ‘Is this all my $200 got me? I wish I’d never bought you.’”

In desperation Tony turned to drugs and at 13 was addicted to marijuana, acid, and alcohol. He had frequent encounters with the law and became a social outcast, but in many ways God was protecting him and carving out a path for his future.

From a life of poverty and drugs Nolan managed to land a high-paying, luxurious job as a yacht captain for a wealthy businessman. He envisioned this job providing ease and happiness, but it did not. In fact, Nolan began to feel more despondent, even suicidal.

However, in the darkest hour of his troublesome life someone came and shared the gospel with Nolan and he prayed to receive Christ as his personal Savior. The change was dramatic and instantaneous.

“I was pluralistic, tolerant, a pot smoker, submerged in destructive habits, drank alcohol; and after I got saved, no one spoke to me for two weeks, but God just changed my life,” he said. “I was sickened by the sins I had been committing.

“Someone told me to read Galatians 2:20 and I read it. I had no idea what it meant at first, but God used it in my life to disciple me. God radically changed my life. I was so hungry for God’s Word that I worked hard in order to earn the $30 taxi fare to get to church.”

God soon called him into full-time ministry. He went to Dallas, Texas and enrolled in Criswell College for Biblical Studies and prepared himself to preach the gospel. In 1996 he was called to be the pastor of college students and singles at First Baptist Church of Woodstock. After four and a half years as a staff member of the Woodstock church Nolan began to feel God was calling him into full-time evangelism.

Motivated by an insatiable desire to reach today’s students Nolan launched out in faith and the doors of opportunity began to open for him to tell the story of God’s redeeming love. Today he partners with some of the country’s most well-known contemporary Christian music artists in concerts and conferences. Some with whom he has ministered are Casting Crowns, Third Day, Mercy Me, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Rebecca St. James.

At the present time Nolan is engaged in the Winter Jam 2009 Tour Spectacular, Christian music’s largest annual musical tour. In 2008 the paid attendance for the Winter Jam Tour was 311,836 with an average nightly attendance of 9,172. Over 53,000 persons made decisions for Christ at last year’s Winter Jam.

Last year Nolan spoke to more than 500,000 students through conferences, concerts, and church events. More than 75,000 people responded to the invitation to receive Christ in those venues where Nolan personally presented the gospel. He works hard at following through with those who make decisions by contacting churches to help disciple the new believers, but Nolan has also become a “web pastor” to more than 100,000 converts.

He has also written a book, “Faith Fuel,” which is intended to be the first in a series of works designed to nurture and encourage the believer.

“Faith Fuel” is a spiritual fueling station,” he states. “When our faith is depleted, we don’t enjoy Jesus. Instead, we endure the journey.

“Running on the fumes is no fun. We need to make sure that we have the stuff in our tanks that can propel us toward extraordinary expeditions with God.”

For the past several years Nolan has been the keynote speaker to thousands at Christian Family Day at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Nolan explained, “For years the St. Louis Cardinal baseball team had what I call a ‘no faith’ day at Busch Stadium and it was dying for lack of support, but when Albert Pujols, the star of the Cardinals and an unashamed Christian, decided to make it a day for Christian families and put his support behind it the success of the emphasis was assured.”

Last year thousands of fans stayed after the game between the Cardinals and the San Diego Padres to hear Casting Crowns and the testimonies of major league players before Nolan preached and invited those present to receive Christ.

“It was awesome and the response was overwhelming,” Nolan reported. “The Gideons were there to give out Bibles to those who responded to the gospel. They were weeping because they did not bring enough Bibles to give to the new converts.”

The response to Nolan’s message is generally awe-inspiring, but he never hesitates to shoot straight with them. “The mosaic generation has more information and gadgets than any previous generation, but they are preoccupied with themselves. I basically tell them they are enslaved to self, headed for an eternity offering either heaven or hell, and they are in need of redemption.

“We’ve been told that they will run away from the truth, but they don’t. They want the truth. They know about hell and death and judgment, because Ozzy Osbourne and Slipknot have been singing about all that for years. So, they know about it. We don’t need to use some kind of stealth method to reach these students. In fact, there is something disingenuous about a church that thinks they must use a plan B or some back door method to reach this generation.

“The problem in many churches is a difference in what folks believe and what is showing up in their lives. Surveys tell us only 17 percent of mosaics have a favorable impression of the church, but 73 percent have been exposed to Christianity. Apparently what they are being exposed to does not impress them.

“We need to challenge today’s youth with the grand expedition of faith. We need to be careful about the kind of pragmatism that excludes the mystical. Evel Knievel would get on his bike and jump great chasms, but today’s youth get on their bikes, jump chasms, and do all kinds of maneuvers in mid-air. So, they want challenges. They want grand adventures.

“The Bible says, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ However, we want to set up our safety nets and we put great value on security, but the idea of a grand expedition of faith is what resonates with them.”

Nolan added, “Churches try to make converts just like them. They try to domesticate them or brand them. We don’t need to police people’s decisions, but we need to unleash people’s decisions.

“My father-in-law was a fighter pilot in the Air Force. He was part of an alert team that protected America’s air space. He taught me to observe, to brief, and debrief. He said, ‘If you do something that produces no return, never do it again.’ We need to simply refocus on getting our people to exchange their ‘to-do’ list for God’s ‘to-do’ list. When you want what God wants for the reason God wants it, you are unstoppable.”