Unleashed—Reaching The Youth Of Your CitySample

Incarnational Evangelism

A travelling evangelist was once invited to preach at a Church convention in Lesotho. To his surprise there was not a single young person in the crowd and therefore the evangelist asked the local pastor “where are the youngsters of this city? Where are the youngsters of this church?” In order to answer his question, the pastor drove him to a building that was lit up with neon lights and was resonating boom!!! boom!!! coupled with the enthusiastic shouts of young people. As they walked in, they saw hundreds of young people on the dance floor of the discotheque. The evangelist met the discotheque owner and literally begged with him for permission to speak to these youngsters. So they came to an agreement and the evangelist was given permission to speak on the next day at 12:00 am in the night. The next day after the meeting at church, he dressed up in casuals and walked into the discotheque. When the clock struck 12 the music was stopped and the evangelist took the microphone and started to talk to them about the Gospel and as few minutes rolled away he sensed the Holy Spirit taking control and youngsters beginning to realise their need for Jesus. The evangelist walked out of the discotheque after praying for them. Next year he was invited again and on his arrival at the airport he was driven straight to the same building and when he opened the doors of the discotheque it was packed with young people. Everyone walked to him and greeted him saying we serve Jesus. They all explained to him that after his visit that night the disco became bankrupt and today the disco is a youth Church. 

Youngsters of the cities are hanging around in hyper-malls, cinema halls, pubs, play arenas, social media and in their own kingdoms. The Churches must catch up with the vision of going beyond buildings and denominations, thinking big to reap the harvest that is ripe in this generation. The church has to work out incarnational evangelism by stretching the tent curtains in order to reach out to the youngsters of the super-cities. The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches and we need to bring the church to the youngsters rather than bringing them to the Church.

Written by Justin Leewen John for Movement Day Chennai