The Open Door

I recently received this brief email from Doug Couch, specialist in Youth Ministries for the Georgia Baptist Convention: “Greetings from Macon, Georgia. First session of the Youth Evangelism Conference attendance was over 6,000 with over 200 decisions, and 70 first time professions of faith. Keep us in your prayers.”

Can you imagine what that does to this pastor’s heart? It thrills me to know that Georgia Baptists are impacting so many young people. As you may know, the Youth Evangelism Conference meets annually during the days following Christmas. Thousands of young people take part of their Christmas holidays to worship and praise the Lord. That also thrills me.

We have a wonderful generation of young people coming up through our Georgia Baptist churches. I want to encourage all of our 3,600 churches to invest time, resources, and effort to touch the hearts and lives of young people, do everything you can to win them to faith in Jesus Christ, baptize them into the fellowship of the church, and nurture and disciple them in the faith.

Every investment in a young life brings rich spiritual dividends for the future. I do not believe that your church can make a finer investment locally than to invest into the lives of your young people and the youth of your community. My prayer is that in 2009, our churches will be very aggressive in reaching out to young people to love them in Jesus’ name and to encourage them in their faith.

It has been reported among Southern Baptists that the greatest single unreached people group in America today is our young people. How tragic it would be if we fail to reach them and in so doing fail to reach our future. How wonderful it would be to see a surge in the baptism of young people in our Georgia Baptist churches in 2009. This can surely happen with a clear focus upon the part of the pastor, the church staff, and the lay leaders of the congregation. Why not make it a priority for your church?

I surely am thankful that I grew up in a church at First Baptist of Montgomery, Alabama, that cared about young people and invested greatly in reaching our hearts. So many outstanding activities were planned for youth. These activities were evangelistic in nature and lovingly carried out through faithful adult lay men and lay women who were committed to making a difference in the lives of young people.

They certainly made a difference in my life. I will forever be grateful for the training I received as a young person in my home church.

Certainly, every age group in the life of the church is vitally important, but none is more important than our young people because they are our hope for our future preaching and teaching of the Gospel of Christ and the growth of strong, healthy churches. I believe that God will bless every effort and every investment made in the lives of young people through your church. Let’s make 2009 the greatest year ever among Georgia Baptists in youth baptisms and discipleship.