TiLInterview- Jason Lamb

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Welcome to the Truth and Love podcast. Thank you for watching and joining us tonight. We have a special interview with Executive Vice President Jason Lamb with Dare to Share Ministries.

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Stick with us. Welcome back to the

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Truth and Love podcast. The comment line is open. Give us a critique, say hello, ask a question.

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We would love to hear from you. Jason, welcome. How are you doing? I'm doing well,

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Rob. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm thrilled to be with you and Dan and everybody listening online.

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Great to be here. Thanks. Fantastic. Dan, you doing well? I was till I realized we don't have a

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British guy talking on the front of our interview intro like we do on the other one. That was so much better than, it's so much better when the

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British guy, British AI guy is telling us what we're gonna be doing for the day so I know what's going on. I mean,

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I can play the other intro real quick. No, we're good. We're good. So Jason and I went to college together.

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We actually lived on the same floor for a year, I believe. A year, yeah.

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Yeah, we did. And we had great times there. I love getting to know Jason.

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I've loved following him the best that I could on social media, Facebook, and seeing what the

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Lord is doing in his life. He is now Executive Vice President of Ministry, Dare to Share Ministries.

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And we are looking forward to celebrating tonight what God is doing through him and his family at Dare to Share Ministries and what they're doing.

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I'm looking forward to learning more about them. If you are, if you know Jason and you don't know

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Truth and Love Podcast, let me tell you just a little bit about who we are before we get started with the interview. So I'm Rob, I'm in North Carolina.

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That's my co -host, Dan. There we go. That's my co -host, Dan. He's in upstate New York.

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We host the Truth and Love Podcast. We try to do it live every Monday night at 8 .30

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p .m. Eastern time. We are also part of the Truth and Love Network, which is a network of pastors and podcasters.

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And we try to get together and collaborate every other Thursday night at 8 .30

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Eastern to do the Laborers Podcast. Next April, we're gonna have our third annual

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Laborers Conference in Newton, North Carolina. You can go to the website laborersconference .com

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and check that out. You can already register for the conference. We will have updates along the way, but I wanna just let you know that that conference is coming up and we're looking forward to that as well.

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So without any further ado, let's jump into the questions. These are just softball questions,

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Jason, so that you can just fill us in. Nothing deep theologically.

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We just wanna hear about you and what God is doing in your life and ministry, and we can celebrate what he's doing.

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I love it. Looking forward to it. Yeah. Yeah, so we just got to talking to each other, maybe what, 15 minutes ago?

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The first time. Realized we all have the same barber and same choice in facial hair.

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But really, we wanna know a little bit more about you. Can you just tell us your testimony, a little bit about your biography, a little bit about just who you are, what you do?

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Yeah, you bet. Yeah, I was raised in a Christian home. Very fortunate that I actually can't remember a season of life growing up where going to church and being involved in church was just not part of the regular rhythm.

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Raised to believe the gospel and made that decision when I was about 10 years old. Still remember that conversation

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I had with my mom and Pastor Jim at Glen Burnie Baptist Church in his church office one week night.

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And yeah, loved the church growing up.

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Was active in kids' ministry and youth ministry. And even at a younger age, especially middle school and high school,

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I had a passion for my friends to come to know Jesus, had a burden for that, but didn't always have the confidence of how to share the gospel, but knew

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I wanted my friends to know Jesus. And unfortunately, when I got to college, really entered a season of rebellion.

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I decided that that was gonna be a season in life that I was gonna live for myself. And knew the truth, unfortunately knew what

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I was walking away from, as sad and frustrating as that sounds in life now. But spent a couple of years in college just living for myself and life on my own terms.

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And I just remember, it was a Saturday morning in college at Gardner Webb University. And I just remember the Lord just impressed upon my heart.

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Hey, the way you've been living, you can keep going that way and I'll release you to that lifestyle that you wanna live, or you can come back and I have plans and purposes for your life that are far beyond your wildest imaginations.

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And I just remember feeling the urgency in that moment. Wasn't an audible conversation with God, just a deep conviction in my soul that I had a choice to make.

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And there was urgency in that choice. And I just remember in that moment saying, I'm sorry that I have just done it for me and not for you.

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And really came to a place of wanting to go all in with Jesus and full send. And what that evolved into very quickly for me was a call to vocational ministry and a desire to serve next gen ministry, minister to young people with the desire of helping them navigate life and make better choices than I did.

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But then as God kind of refined that calling over my adult life, it was that deep seated realization of just wanting them to walk with Jesus and not walk away from Jesus and to know

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Jesus deeply and to make Him known. And so I'm very grateful for the home that I was raised in, that I had that foundation and those roots.

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It was my lifeline for sure in the midst of that rebellion and God's goodness and kindness to call me back.

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So I am married to my wife, Neva. We've been married for a little over 24 years.

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We have three sons. Our oldest is 23. Our middle son is 15 and a sophomore in high school.

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And our youngest is 11 going into sixth grade. So 12 years from top to bottom, we spaced them out real good, but I love being a dad of boys.

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All three of them love Jesus, which is just the joy of my life to know that my kids are walking with the

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Lord. My oldest is actually serving as a worship leader at a church in Florida. And yeah,

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I love getting to do life and ministry with my wife, who's a sixth grade Bible school teacher at our local

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Christian school. And she does the choir and worship team there. So yeah, love life and grateful for a family that supports me and what

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I get to do here at Dare to Share. Mm, praise the Lord. And you kind of flowed into the next question, your desire, a lot of people call it like calling to ministry.

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Tell us about that desire for vocational ministry and how you began with Dare to Share Ministries and then that work towards, or how did the executive vice president come about?

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Yeah, yeah, like I said, in college had that moment with the Lord that just that deep seated conviction of serving him with my life and very quickly knowing that I wanted to serve him in the local church and to and through the next generation.

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I'm a huge local church fan, absolutely love and believe in the local church. And so when

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I sensed God's leading in my life, it just, it was a no brainer. I wanted to love on kids.

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And so work for a church as a youth minister and a kids minister in different seasons. And so right after, or as my wife and I were getting married my last semester at Gardner Webb before I graduated started working at a church in South Carolina as a youth pastor and just thought that that would be the rest of my life because I love the local church, love

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Jesus, love the next gen and it just made sense. And I remember it was actually that first year of ministry in South Carolina, a friend of mine in ministry introduced me to Dare to Share.

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We went to a free lunch and training in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I remember thinking these

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Dare to Share folks are crazy. Like they're the crazy evangelism people. That was my first impression.

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And admittedly, I was a little bit of a skeptic. I thought that it was so bold and so out there that it just, it wouldn't work for me and it wouldn't work for my ministry.

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And fast forward a few years later, I was actually at a church up in Northern Virginia. We had moved, that area had been hometown for me growing up outside the

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DC metro area. And so I was serving the Lord at a church there, again, as a youth pastor. But I just remember thinking something is missing in my ministry.

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Something is not right. I remember in my prayers to the Lord, like why are we not seeing the fruitfulness we desire to see?

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Why are we not seeing kids excited about the gospel and reaching their friends? And in only the way the

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Lord can, in his ever loving kindness, but also in a very firm way, he revealed to me that while I said those things were important,

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I wasn't doing anything to actually live those out in my ministry. I said the gospel was important, but I wasn't even giving the gospel regularly.

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I wanted to see the faith, but I wasn't sharing the gospel personally. And he just used that season to say, hey, this thing that you want, like you're not doing it.

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And that in that season was actually headed to a National Youth Leaders Conference for some training and equipping.

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And as it happened, Dare to Share was there. Greg Steer, the founder of Dare to Share Ministries was there doing a lot of training.

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And I was like, okay, I remember those are the crazy evangelism people, but I'm recognizing that's missing in my ministry.

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And so in some ways, in some desperation, like I had nothing to lose. It just, things weren't working in youth ministry.

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Went to every session that Greg spoke at and still in the back of my mind, I was like, these are the crazy evangelism people.

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This is nuts. I was still skeptical, but I didn't have anything to lose. And so I bought some of the resources, bought one of Greg's books that really, really fired me up.

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But there was a very practical step that in his training challenged youth leaders to go home and do.

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And it was simply to give the gospel every time you meet in your youth group, whether it's Wednesday night, Sunday morning, just give the gospel.

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And I was like, that's crazy. I've got a bunch of church kids, but again, I had nothing to lose. So I went for it.

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And four weeks into giving the gospel every Wednesday night, six of my 30 church kids that I would have sworn to were all believers.

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Six of them made first time decisions to trust in Christ. And I got to baptize those students that summer.

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And I remember being overwhelmed at God's goodness and also so frustrated the sin of assumption that I had played in my ministry that because these kids were coming to church, they already knew.

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And from that point forward, gave the gospel every week in youth ministry, any vocational church pastor, church planner, youth pastor job

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I've had, giving the gospel every week just became a core conviction. And so we saw a radical transformation in our youth ministry, went from being what

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I would call or describe a typical program -driven, attractional model of youth ministry to being an admissional evangelism training and equipping students sending to their local campuses ministry.

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And we saw God do extraordinary things. And as a result of that, again, in a very sweet God moment in life, just felt like he pressed upon my heart that what

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I had seen in that youth ministry in that local church, God desired for me to be a part of the ministry that would help hundreds, if not thousands of youth leaders have that same aha moment that I had.

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And so at that time, my wife and our oldest son who was in kindergarten, we moved across country from DC to Denver, Colorado.

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And I came to Deer to Share and served from 2006 to 2011, a sweet time of ministry, but I just,

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I missed the local church. Again, I'm a local church guy. It's just part of who I am. So left in 2011, ended up at a church in Johnson City, Tennessee as a youth pastor there.

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And then we church planted outside of Washington DC for four years.

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But then in 2018, I came back to Deer to Share again, just wrestling with the

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Lord, local church supporting the local church and really felt resolved in my soul that Deer to Share is where he wanted me to be.

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When I came back in 2018, it was to serve as a vice president of ministry advancement. So I was part of the executive team at Deer to Share.

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And then just a year ago, was promoted to executive vice president of ministry. So that role, both as VP of ministry advancement in my current role,

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I have the privilege of leading the division within the ministry that really does work with the youth leaders that we work with around the world, responsible for the relationship we have with those youth leaders and how we resource them.

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And so I absolutely love my job. I tell people that I've got the second best job on the planet because we have the privilege to serve the people with the best job on the planet.

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And that's men and women who give their life to serving the next generation in the local church. And that,

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I mean that from the bottom of my heart. And so, yeah, very excited and honored privilege to serve as executive vice president.

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That was part of our current president's transition plan of setting me up in our ministry.

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I'll actually be stepping into the president's role on November 1st. So we're in the midst of running a transition plan.

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So yeah, that's been the ministry journey, always at the core of my convictions. Again, love for the

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Lord, love for the local church and the next generation. And so simply put, at Dare to Share, we say that we have strong convictions and believe in the power of the gospel and the potential of teenagers.

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So here I am. Good stuff. So I work at a warehouse and I have the job title of the director of warehousing and logistics.

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It's very fancy, very long. Wear a monocle when you read it, see it on business cards and stuff.

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But for about an hour today, I spent cleaning up some soybean oil that had spilled just outside the warehouse.

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I'm not gonna say how much, I may incriminate myself, but we were cleaning that up for quite a while.

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So I understand that being a executive vice president and a November president, you got the fancy title and all, but what does some of your day -to -day stuff look like that you're gonna be doing?

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Some of the stuff that I'm sure you're passionate about to get to doing, what's your day -to -day gonna look like?

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Your kind of duties, your responsibilities that way, give us a little bit of the heartbeat of what you'll be doing over there.

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Yeah, absolutely. First and foremost, it's really leading the staff team here at Dare to Share.

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So we've got about 30 people that are on staff, most of whom are based here out of Denver, Colorado. But really in a lot of ways, there's some things that haven't changed about being a pastor in a local church and then stepping into this role of president at Dare to Share is really shepherding our staff and caring for them, equipping them, make sure that they're set up for success and then releasing them to do what they're gifted at doing.

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And so shepherding the staff, leading them well is my number one responsibility in what

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I do. And if I do that well, then I believe then they'll do what they've been led to do and called to do here at Dare to Share well in serving youth leaders and ministry leaders all over the world.

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In addition to leading our staff, then it comes with refining our vision and what that looks like year to year in terms of practical projects or initiatives.

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We also kind of run on a quarterly system at Dare to Share so that things aren't too far away that we lose sight of them, which really helps us stay focused.

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Managing our budget and putting our budget together. And so there's an increase certainly in some of the administrative and organizational leadership responsibilities that will be more of the day -to -day that in some ways come with the trade -off of a little bit more removed from the frontline of ministry.

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And so it's interesting stepping into those roles and I know that there'll be days that I don't quite get to do the things that I get most excited about, but I can honestly say

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I'm thrilled for this opportunity. Really feel like that through my life experiences and the way God has gifted me and wired me that this is very much where he wants me to be and doing what he has created me to do.

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And so I'm thrilled to step into that. I'll still get to travel. I've loved at Dare to Share.

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We've grown globally over the last several years. So I've gotten to travel abroad quite a bit. Probably won't travel as much.

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And so my wife and sons are certainly grateful for that. But yeah, that's what it's gonna look like is shepherding and leading our staff, keeping us focused on the main things and then just getting the job done.

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For folks out there who are like me, like I mentioned to you earlier,

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I've heard about Dare to Share Ministries. I never really did any investigation myself, but I want to learn more.

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So your mission, your vision, your goals, yeah, let people know who you are.

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Yeah, thank you for the opportunity, Rob. Absolutely. Again, we have this core conviction deep seated within all of us and within the life of our ministry, the power of the gospel and the potential of teenagers.

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And so our mission statement at Dare to Share is to energize the church, to mobilize youth, to gospelize their world.

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And so to energize the church again, to and through the local church, we are very passionate about the

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Big C Church, the universal church, but know that that faithful expression in every community is the local church.

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And so it's our desire to serve, again, primarily youth leaders in the local church, to resource and equip them with everything they need to be the best that God desires them to be in that position.

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So that's to energize the church, is to wake the church up to the urgency of this generation that is massive, but lost and dying apart from a relationship with Jesus Christ.

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And then wake up the army of young people that are in the church. And so to mobilize youth is really to provide evangelism, training and equipping for young people to reach their friends with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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We believe that the next generation within the church is not the church of tomorrow. They very much are the church of today, that they're an untapped potential oftentimes in the church.

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They're an army of young people ready to be unleashed, to live on mission for Jesus and reach their friends.

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And so then that last phrase, for them to gospelize their world, is simply to reach their friends with the gospel.

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The best person to reach a 15 year old with the gospel is a believing 15 year old who's confident to share the gospel.

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They just have that pure influence. They're doing life, they're in the same place, but they have the hope of Jesus Christ in them. And so that word gospelize actually is a fun old

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English term that Spurgeon coined way back in the day. And the quote that it comes from, he said,

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I contend for this, that to gospelize a man is the greatest miracle in the world.

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And what he meant by that, and what he went on to explain is to share the gospel and see somebody become converted, to pass from death to life, from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of life.

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There's no greater miracle on planet earth than seeing a dead soul come to life in Christ. And so that's what it means for young people to gospelize their world.

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So that's our mission at Dare to Share, is to energize the church, to mobilize youth, to gospelize their world.

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And then the very natural outflow is the vision that God has given us. And that's every teen everywhere hearing the gospel from a friend.

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The United Nations says that there are 1 billion teenagers on planet earth. It's the largest generation of young people the world has ever seen.

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And again, the vast majority of them are living a life in death apart from Christ.

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And so we wanna mobilize the young people in the church to reach their friends with the gospel, to give them the gospel, to give them hope of the hell that they're going through and the hell that they're going to.

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Those are realities that these young people are facing. And so every teen for us is literally, we wanna know that every one of the 1 billion young people on the planet have heard the gospel from a friend.

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Everywhere, obviously is implicit in every teen, but for us, God has allowed our ministry over the last seven to 10 years to grow globally.

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Our first 25 years, very US focused. We did weekend conferences to train kids how to share the gospel.

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But we realized that weekend conferences here in the States would not get us to the end of every teen everywhere hearing the gospel from a friend.

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We could never do enough conferences to make that happen. And so that's informed strategies and initiatives and some more things that we'll share about through the course of the podcast for sure.

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But every teen everywhere hearing the gospel from a friend, again, the best person to reach a 17 year old girl with the gospel is a 17 year old girl who has the hope of Christ.

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And we believe that with all that we are. And so the goals then to see that happen, again, to and through the local church, through the youth leaders, we have a goal to see what we would call a gospel advancing leader on every continent, country and community.

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And even more than that, a network of gospel advancing youth leaders on every continent, country and community.

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And so for us, a gospel advancing leader is an identifier that separates a youth leader who's really stepping into this belief and affinity with the vision of every teen everywhere hearing the gospel from a friend and then building a youth ministry around this gospel advancing ministry philosophy that creates a disciple multiplication culture or a disciple making culture within their youth ministry.

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And so at Dare to Share, we have two core competencies then that get expressed through the mission, vision and goals.

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One is probably been easy to identify is evangelism training. We provide tools and resources for young people to share the gospel with their friends, provide those tools and resources for youth leaders.

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So that's the addition side of the equation is young people able to articulate the gospel to boldly step onto their middle school and high school campuses or their homeschool co -op or the sports team and share the gospel with their friends.

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We call that seed chucking, right? Adding to the kingdom. But what we desire beyond that is for youth ministries and youth groups to become gospel advancing where there's a ministry philosophy put into place that creates a disciple making culture that becomes a greenhouse effect.

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So that we're not just adding young people to the kingdom because the youth leader is giving the gospel every week and these teens are sharing the gospel, but it's just from additional multiplication that greenhouse effect where we're mobilizing every young person in our youth ministry to go reach their friends with the gospel.

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And so that those are our heartbeats. That's what we're about. That's who we are and what we do. That's great.

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So how do y 'all do that? Just kind of pull back the curtain a little bit. Say I was a struggling youth pastor in a small town in South Carolina and say,

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I've got 10 teens going to three, I'm describing the actual situation

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I was in. 10 teens. I thought you were talking about me, Dan, so you're good. 10 teens, three different high schools and not a lot of resources.

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Your budget's maybe $2 ,000 a year or something like that. And what is it that y 'all would do to kind of help folks see that vision become a reality?

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Yeah, absolutely. Well, beyond being able to sit down with that youth leader and have a personal connection with them, because that very much was my journey in a lot of ways in some different ministry settings.

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I'd encourage them to check out our website, dare2share .org, dare2share .org.

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Our board led us to the decision about four or five years ago that we didn't want any barriers between youth leaders and students and the curriculum and resources that we offer.

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So we've digitized most of our resources and all of those digital resources are available on our website for free.

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So we have several curriculum that do evangelism training, several curriculum that walk through a disciple multiplication strategy and process.

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All of those are free for the youth leader. And so I would actually tell the youth leaders who's got the $2 ,000 budget, keep their money.

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We would love to resource and equip you for free. And again, a lot of those resources, books, curriculums, trainings are geared toward equipping young people to share the gospel and providing youth leaders with those tools to do that.

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It really is about that young person having the boldness and confidence to share the gospel. And so, you know, and with that, we wanna walk alongside youth leaders to build that greenhouse of a gospel advancing ministry philosophy.

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So a couple of tools, just to point out real quick and resources that are available for free. There's a book that our founder,

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Greg Stier, wrote called Gospelize Your Youth Ministry that explains in details the gospel advancing ministry philosophy, again, built on that vision of every teen everywhere hearing the gospel from a friend.

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But what does that look like in your local community in South Carolina or wherever you live?

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I walked through that process with youth pastor at the church I go to here in Nevada, Colorado, and we identified that there's 14 ,000 students in 20 middle schools and high schools in our community.

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So every teen everywhere hearing the gospel from a friend in Nevada, Colorado means those 14 ,000 young people hearing the gospel from a friend.

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And so understanding what that vision looks like in your context. But then we identified through a research project years ago, not anything that we cooked up at Dare to Share, but that a gospel advancing ministry, there were seven values that were evident in any youth ministry that was seeing 25 % new conversion growth.

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So for the simplicity of math, if a youth group had 100 students at the beginning of the school year, they were at 125 by the end of the school year because their young people shared the gospel with and saw 25 of their friends come to Christ and get plugged into that youth groups.

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That's what we mean by new conversion growth. So these seven values were evident in youth ministries, whether they knew

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Dare to Share or they didn't know Dare to Share, whether they were a part of a denomination or independent. And so as we saw these values, because again, our desire is that the local church wins, that the local youth leader has what they need to be successful.

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We started championing these seven values. They're outlined on our website, they're walked through in that book,

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Gospel as Your Youth Ministry, but it's intercessory prayer. The youth ministries that pray for the lost are the most effective at reaching the lost.

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Relational evangelism, so young people, not in a preaching on the street corner or gospel presentation, but a relational evangelism, the ability to have a relational conversation with their friends to explain the gospel, identify the hurts of their friends, give them the hope of Christ.

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The third value is a leader who fully embraces and model it. So these ministries, if the youth leader was not living these things out, then it wasn't taking the foothold in the ministry.

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The fourth value is a disciple multiplication strategy. So yes, we're seeing young people come to faith, but we're getting them plugged into our youth ministries.

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We're helping them grow in Christ and we're training and equip them to reach their friends with the gospel. And then the last few are just quite simply a bold vision focuses it.

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We know what winning looks like in our community. So again, in Arvada, 14 ,000, we know that's what it's gonna take to win the day for the kingdom.

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Biblical outcomes measure it. So yeah, it's great to take attendance, but are we actually measuring baptisms?

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The number of gospel conversations we're having, the number of young people that are coming to faith, those types of spiritual benchmarks.

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And then the last value is simply that ongoing programs reflect it, that this isn't just an outreach event we do to kick the year off, but this is what our youth ministry is made of.

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And so that book goes deep into each of those seven values, but really will provide youth leaders in the local church, the framework that they need to build that, again, greenhouse, if you will, of a ministry philosophy in their youth ministry.

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And Dan, you described that youth leaders got 10 kids from a couple of different high schools in South Carolina. What we've learned over the years is educated and informed, but our best guess is that of the 400 to 450 ,000 evangelical churches in the

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United States, 80 to 90 % of those churches, if they have a youth ministry, it's led by a volunteer or a bivocational youth leader, and oftentimes without a budget.

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So there's actually, relatively speaking, very few paid professionals, youth leaders in the local church.

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And so our desire is to meet those local youth leaders where they're at. And so again, the volunteer youth leader who doesn't have a whole lot of time on their hands because they're working a job that just needs the resources on our website, everything that we have to offer digitally is made free.

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The ebook of Gospel Eyes will give them a framework to really set them up. And then podcasts and webinars and archive trainings, just the abundance of resource and always we're an email or phone call away and have a team here on staff that loves, loves, loves connecting with youth leaders to walk alongside them in their journey.

29:58

Yeah, so I'm gonna jump in and ask a follow -up question. So take that, Rob. This sounds, it sounds like you guys kind of focused towards youth ministry, but it sounds like these principles would actually serve the larger church body as well.

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Can you speak to that? Y 'all thought through that at all? Yeah, that's a great question. Oh, Rob's coming.

30:24

I was actually getting ready to jump in before you started and ask the same question.

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I'll get you to it. Before you answer, Jason, let me ask it my way and you can answer.

30:40

It'll be better. Just in a different direction.

30:46

They're different thought about this. So it's almost the same line as what Dan was talking about. So kind of two questions, you know, the gospel is the gospel.

30:55

It is. Evangelism is evangelism. Yes. And so it's inevitable in these interviews that you answering these questions, you're gonna bleed over and start answering the other questions.

31:05

And so that kind of leaves room for you to trigger other questions. So we're taking this off script here.

31:12

Gospel is the gospel, evangelism is evangelism. And so what's triggered in my mind is this idea of these resources that you have bleed over into affecting adults as well.

31:27

And then here's the other thing. There's no doubt in my mind, you run into this.

31:34

There's folks probably in our circles and other circles that as soon as they hear he's speaking to someone who was pro youth ministry, there's this growing conviction that youth ministry is not biblical.

31:49

We don't go that route. And, you know, that's fine.

31:57

So, but evangelism, evangelism, gospel is the gospel. And so these resources like Dan was talking about, they're gonna be effective even if you don't believe in youth ministry.

32:12

So speak to those questions. How have these resources affected and been used to minister to adults?

32:19

And how can it be used in those scenarios where there's a group of folks, circles, churches, local churches that don't believe in youth ministry?

32:30

Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I'll go with the easy question first and then I'll come back to the youth ministry question, which is great.

32:37

Yes, because this is a value -based ministry philosophy, we do see it not just work in different age specific ministries or even in a larger local church, but we see it go beyond geography.

32:52

This is not a cooked up Western American youth ministry model. I mean, we work with leaders all over the world, travel the world.

32:59

And so we see it not just transcending different age demographics within the church, but also geographical borders.

33:06

And so for us, I mentioned that because that gives us encouragement and evidence that this is biblical.

33:13

These seven values that I just walked through, like we can look through the book of Acts and we'll see those seven values everywhere in the early church.

33:19

And so it's a biblical model, which is what encourages us, why we believe it goes beyond borders.

33:25

But then for the same reason it works in a local church. And so Dare to Share has been around for 33 years.

33:31

We're in a season where we're seeing teenagers that we ministered to now as youth leaders or even pastors.

33:38

Youth leaders that we served 10 years ago are now serving as senior pastors in churches and they're applying these values churchwide.

33:44

And they're seeing the same type of impact and fruitfulness in their local church because it's creating a disciple making culture within the church, which by the way, is the very thing that Jesus called us to do is to go and make disciples.

33:57

And so it's like, of course it works because it's what Jesus commanded us to do.

34:04

But we do, we're starting to see senior pastor networks built around these values. Obviously youth ministry networks.

34:12

We've had kids ministries who've asked to use our gospel acrostic, which is how we train students to share the gospel or create kids resources.

34:19

And at that point, we're very open -handed. We believe the lane that we're supposed to stay in and the way that we're supposed to serve the local churches to next -gen ministry and specifically youth ministry.

34:29

And so we freely provide our resources for kids ministry partners to develop kids ministry resources or adult ministry resources.

34:38

And we've done a few things here and there, sermon series, small group guides, those types of things. But by and large, we stay in our youth ministry lane.

34:45

And for those that question youth ministry, just in terms of, is it biblical, unbiblical? This is simply what

34:53

I'd share as a personal conviction of mine. And I actually believe when I look at scripture that Jesus was a youth leader.

35:02

I believe that with all my heart. We see Jesus and the disciples go to Capernaum and Jesus and Peter pay the temple tax, right?

35:10

So the Pharisees approach Peter, hey, why didn't your rabbi pay the temple tax? Peter goes to Jesus. Jesus tells him to go fetch the coins out of the fish.

35:19

And it wasn't just enough for Jesus to pay the temple tax, but also for Peter to pay the temple tax.

35:25

So if you cross -reference that with Exodus, we see that the temple tax or the tabernacle tax was required of everyone who was 20 years old and older.

35:36

So Jesus and the disciples go to Capernaum, but only Jesus and Peter pay the temple tax.

35:41

So if I'm reading that right and exegeting the text right, which I always wanna be faithful to the text,

35:47

Jesus and Peter pay the temple tax. They're the only two there that are over the age of 20. The other 11 disciples are 19 or under.

35:55

And so what that tells me is that Jesus was a youth leader with one adult sponsor and one really screwed up kid named

36:03

Jesus, right? But with his youth group of 11 slash 12, he changed the world.

36:09

And so I think biblically and through the life of Jesus, we see a biblical model of ministry to the next generation.

36:16

Now, whether somebody wants to argue the right model or method to implement within a local church, I think that there's grace in the kingdom for us to figure those things out in our local church expressions.

36:28

I'm a big advocate for youth ministry in the local church for a couple of reasons. Number one,

36:34

I do believe that the parents should be the primary disciples of their kids. I think scripture is really clear on that.

36:41

The unfortunate thing is with the divorce rate being what it is in America, the number of kids being raised in fatherless homes or single parent homes, or the number of kids now that our country has described as post -Christian, the number of young people that are not being raised in Christian homes, if we don't have ministry to the next generation that is missional in nature, what hope and opportunity do those kids have to come to Christ?

37:08

And so, yes, in a perfect world, families are the primary disciples or students that's biblical, that they're the primary disciple of their kids.

37:18

But I really think that healthy local churches have strong kids ministry and youth ministries to support what parents are doing, but also to lead the way where the parent, believing parents,

37:27

Christian parents, are absent in the lives of their young people. And so, again, we can debate models and methods.

37:33

The heart is, are we reaching kids with the gospel and raising them to be disciple makers? Well, one of the reasons why

37:40

I bring that up is for the folks, for your folks who may watch this and don't know us, one of the things that we're all about is we try to seek unity as Christ has taught us to seek unity where we can, especially on secondary issues.

37:58

We don't waver on those foundational core issues, but where we can seek unity, we want to celebrate that.

38:05

So just a little bit about who we are. I'm a Reformed Baptist in a

38:11

Southern Baptist church. Dan is a former Baptist who's now a Presbyterian in the RPCNA branch of the

38:16

Presbyterian church. In our True Love Network, we have Reformed Baptists, we have Presbyterians, we have a

38:22

Church of God, we have an Anglican. So we have a variety of folks who come from different backgrounds.

38:31

Dan and I, when we do our teaching here on the podcast, we're mostly teaching from our perspective, but oftentimes, or sometimes we'll have a different perspective and we can example unity in our disagreements to show others that we can have unity and we can celebrate those differences, but also grow from one another.

38:55

And so you have resources that are about the gospel, about evangelism, about reaching the lost.

39:02

And so anybody can use those principles and use those techniques, gain wisdom, be sharpened by the things that you guys have put together.

39:14

And maybe even if you don't believe in youth ministry, you can utilize some of those resources to be sharing the gospel, to be evangelizing the lost.

39:24

And so I appreciate anybody who's working for the kingdom, working for the Lord and sharing, especially free resources, who folks can utilize those things to help them to share the gospel with the lost, whether it be their own children or children of other folks.

39:44

So it's an amazing thing that we can work together when we're not fighting one another.

39:50

Yeah, that's a great word, Robin. You're right, our curriculum and resources, a youth leader can use that to mobilize their young people, equip them and train them and then activate them to share the gospel.

40:00

But a mom and dad can do that with their kids in their household to give them that training and equipping and then take them out in the community to have that same faith sharing experience.

40:08

Again, model of next -gen ministry aside, the tools and resources do just that, train and equip young people to share the gospel and train adults to share the gospel.

40:17

That's right, that's right. I'll take the next question. And I thought this was very interesting how you worded this question.

40:25

So I'm looking forward to your answer. You talked a lot about discipleship and how that's part of the

40:32

Christian's journey is that God saves us, we are justified before him.

40:40

And then he begins the process of sanctification, growing us and we disciple one another. And you talked about how even sharing the gospel is a part of that growing process.

40:52

Oh yeah. So how does sharing the gospel help in your own personal growth in Christianity?

41:01

Yeah, that's a great question. A good friend of the ministry, Doug Holliday, who's the executive director of Sun Life.

41:08

I love how he describes biblical discipleship, but he simply says, biblical discipleship starts and ends with evangelism.

41:15

That in order to make a disciple, we have to lead, share the gospel, bring that person to a point of decision where they put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and they begin walking with Jesus and they grow in their relationship.

41:27

And part of that journey then is being able to live on mission with Jesus and share the gospel themselves.

41:32

And so again, to make disciples, we have to be able to lead people Christ to begin with because that starts that discipleship journey.

41:41

But if we join Jesus on mission to make disciples, then every single one of us should be sharing the gospel and making disciples in our individual lives.

41:49

And so the reality is, and we actually see this happen regularly at the events that we do where we mobilize students.

41:56

We see young people put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And the next day out sharing the gospel and leading people to Christ.

42:05

Because if we know enough to be saved, we have enough within us to lead others to that same salvation.

42:12

I think when Jesus said in Luke, the son of man came to seek and save the lost, like that was his purpose to come, was to save sinners.

42:23

He's invited us into that mission. And so for us to grow in our journeys to be like Christ implies and plainly states in scripture that we should be on mission just like Jesus was.

42:35

I think when we step out in boldness to share the gospel, we're dependent on the

42:41

Holy Spirit for that boldness. We're dependent on the spirit to guide us through that conversation.

42:49

But yeah, we very much believe that a disciple's journey includes, and then sometimes even summarized it in evangelism, the ability to articulate the gospel and share the gospel.

43:03

So yeah, it's foundation. I don't understand, I've yet to be able to understand somebody's disciple -making process that does not involve evangelism.

43:20

I'm processing something in my brain because I'm making connections from stuff that I've done in the past.

43:29

You said, did you mention an organization called Sun Life? Yeah, Sun Life is a partner ministry that we work with.

43:35

Are they the ones that advocate for a four chair discipleship model? Four chair discipleship, yeah.

43:41

That's what, all right. I was like, I knew I'd heard of you guys before when I was wondering where that was coming from. So when we train those seven values of gospel advancing, obviously evangelism training is a core competency of Darius Shearer.

43:53

So relational evangelism, leaders who fully embrace and model that. Disciple multiplication, we're highly invested in that.

43:59

We wanna speak into that, but we also point leaders to ministries like Sun Life because that four chair discipling gives a model for discipleship.

44:07

We point them to Word of Life Ministries, who's got an abundance of resources as well that help make disciples of young people.

44:15

And so, yeah, we wanna serve the kingdom of God in our gifting and skillset at Darius Shearer and then point them to other kingdom co -laborers who are doing what they're gifted at, all of it working together to serve youth leaders in the local church.

44:29

Awesome, awesome. So highlight some of those top resources. So like Sun Life and their four chair model, and you said

44:36

Word of Life. What are some other ones that you would point people to just off the bat? Yeah, so as I mentioned earlier,

44:42

Gospelize Your Youth Ministry, that book that walks through the Gospel Advancing Youth Ministry philosophy. You can purchase the book, but it's a free ebook on our website.

44:50

It's a great place to start. We've also developed a faith sharing app called Life in Six Words that you can find on any app store, whatever phone, whatever platform you're on.

45:02

It's a great faith sharing app. So if you're just learning how to share the gospel, we like to say, if you can swipe and read, then you can share the gospel because the app will help you with that.

45:12

It's a very interactive app. One of the exciting things for us with that app is it's built on a platform that allows for a lot of translation.

45:19

So the app is currently available in 22 languages and that's all embedded in the app itself.

45:25

So we have young people who go on mission trips that find themselves in a context where they don't speak that native language and they can use the app if that language is in the app and walk somebody through the gospel.

45:36

And so we're seeing kids all over the world able to communicate the gospel even with people that don't speak the same language.

45:43

And so I'd encourage you li6w .com or search Life in Six Words in your app stores.

45:51

And then another resource that we have that actually is one of the events, I mentioned for years we did these weekend conferences but realized there was no way to see every teen everywhere hear the gospel from a friend through those weekend conferences as powerful as they were.

46:06

And so several years ago we started an online event called Dare to Share Live. And so November 9th of 2024 this year that second

46:14

Saturday of November is the Global Day of Youth Evangelism. And we make this Dare to Share Live resource available for that day.

46:22

It's videos that you download and are able to play for your students. So it inspires them, gives them gospel urgency.

46:29

It equips them with gospel fluency and trains through our gospel acrostic and how to have a gospel conversation.

46:36

It gives them a strategy for how to share the gospel throughout the year. But as part of Dare to Share Live, students are activated youth leaders in their local settings because it's online and videos that they can play in their youth rooms, go into their own local communities for kids to share the gospel in their communities.

46:53

And because it's a video format, last year for the first time we actually did a video format versus a live stream.

46:59

We saw youth groups from Australia and then all the way through Asia, Africa, Europe to the Americas participating in Dare to Share Live.

47:07

And through that Life in Six Words app, there's a map where we could see activity of gospel conversations happening all around the world.

47:15

Dare to Share Live, again, it's a video -based resource, a video -based event.

47:21

So we want everybody that can to participate on November 9th, whatever time zone, whatever time of day works for you to be a part of that launch weekend.

47:30

But because it's video -based, you can do that whenever you want to throughout the year. We had youth groups this last year do multiple times throughout the year to train and equip their students and mobilize them to go and share the gospel, but it's free.

47:44

We don't charge for that event. We don't charge for those resources. Again, we wanna put those in the hands of youth leaders.

47:50

And so on our website, again, daretoshare .org, or you can go to daretosharelive .org.

47:55

It'll redirect you to that event. We've got churches all over the world already registering for November 9th to be a part of that with us.

48:03

So we, again, Dan, we try to make everything accessible to youth leader. We try to make as much available free of charge, but Gospel as Your Youth Ministry is a great book to read to help frame your philosophy of youth ministry.

48:15

The Life in Six Words app is a great faith -sharing app that will help your students on that journey.

48:21

And then Dare to Share Live is a free one -day event that you can participate in and let your students be a part of a global movement that has a very local expression in your community.

48:32

Oh, that's great. The other app, especially with the different languages. One thing that we're coming across up here in upstate

48:40

New York, when there was an influx of immigrants coming across and Governor Abbott was shipping them to New York City.

48:49

Right. The immigrants. What happened was that the city wasn't able to handle the number of immigrants coming in and they started shipping them to the upstate, to different towns around here.

48:59

So we have, in the city, there's always been different languages and folks down there.

49:06

Up here, nobody thought they were ever gonna have to learn Spanish. So now we have these people who need the gospel.

49:15

And so there's a great opportunity, if you don't know Spanish or one of the other 22 languages, because we're seeing folks from all over the place being dropped off here in the upstate and say, hey, these people need the

49:28

Lord too. So we're finding an opportunity, whatever the politics may be, we're finding an opportunity to get the gospel into the ears of people and into their lives.

49:40

And something like that would be helpful. You know, you have that app and like, well, I don't know all the words to say, but man,

49:46

I can translate it for you. And these words, whether I know them or not, are the words of life and here you go.

49:53

That's right. That's fantastic. That's good stuff. I appreciate that, Dan. Yeah, that acrostic, and I know

49:58

I've referenced it a few times and probably should have walked through it a little bit earlier, but the acrostic we use, the life in six words is literally an acrostic for the gospel,

50:08

G -O -S -P -E -L. So the life in those six words is God our sins paying everyone life.

50:14

So God created us to be with him. Our sins separate us from God. Sins cannot be removed by good deeds.

50:22

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life and life with Jesus starts now and lasts forever.

50:32

So we give students that framework. We want them to memorize those statements, but not so that they'll simply regurgitate the six statements, but to have the foundational truths that in the ebbs and flow of a gospel conversation, they know what truths they need to communicate.

50:46

So we train kids, ask, admire, admit, ask good questions, then ask spiritual questions, admire what you can about somebody's spiritual beliefs.

50:57

Even if you don't agree, if they come from a different worldview, I can still admire the fact that a

51:02

Muslim would pray five times a day. Like what an extraordinary discipline. I don't agree with the

51:07

God that you're praying to. I don't agree with the rest of your worldview, but I can admire your faithfulness to pray and then admit in that conversation why

51:15

I needed Jesus, why I needed saving, and then use that as an opportunity to go through the gospel.

51:23

And so in a conversation, it might sound more like, you know, I realized I needed saving, that I was a sinner and I was introduced to the beautiful truth that God created the heavens, the earth, the entire universe, that God created everything around us, the trees and the mountains in upstate

51:39

New York, the Smoky Mountains in Western North Carolina, none of the Rocky Mountains here in Denver, Colorado, but the crowning jewel of God's creation was humanity.

51:49

Adam and Eve were the first humans that God said were very good. God loves and values every single one of us.

51:57

We were created to have relationship with Him, but because of our sin, because of our sin nature, we've been separated from this holy and loving

52:05

God who created us to have relationship with Him, but we've rebelled against Him. And that sin comes with a price.

52:13

Separation from God, which means that we will inevitably, apart from God, spend an eternity in hell and there's absolutely nothing that we can do about it.

52:22

There's no amount of good deeds I can do that will overtake the bad deeds, the sin in my life.

52:28

Good works is like putting frosting on a burnt cake. Once I bite into it, I'm still gonna find out it's burnt and bad.

52:35

It just makes it look good from the outside and there's nothing I can do in and of myself to save me.

52:41

But because God loves us, the Bible tells us that for God so loved the world that He sent

52:46

His one and only Son, Jesus, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

52:52

Jesus put on flesh, fully God, fully man. He lived the perfect life that you and I would never live, but He died the death we all deserved to die.

53:01

Jesus died in our place and for our sin. But God the

53:06

Father was pleased with the Son and on the third day raised Him from the dead in victory over sin and death and Satan.

53:13

And the Bible says that anyone and everyone who puts their faith and trust in Him and Him alone, not their good deeds, not any other false deity, in Christ and Christ alone, by grace through faith, has eternal life.

53:28

And life with Jesus starts now and lasts forever. It's not something I just get to look forward to when I die, that I will be reunited with Jesus for all eternity and glory, but I get to start living in relationship with Him now and He invites me into mission with Him to seek and save the loss.

53:44

And so again, you probably heard through that, the G -O -S -P -L, it's rolling around in the back of my mind, but in the flow of a conversation, comes out more naturally like that.

53:52

And that's ultimately we want. And then we train students to ask two questions at the end of explaining the gospel.

53:58

Does that make sense? And if the answer is no, then you can ask clarifying questions, re -explain things that maybe weren't understood.

54:06

But if they get to a place to say, yes, that makes sense, is to then ask, is there anything holding you back from putting your faith and trust in Jesus right now?

54:14

And that prompts that decision of that unbeliever. And so that's a glimpse into our evangelism training and what informs a lot of the curriculum and resources we make available.

54:23

So again, evangelism training for young people and for youth leaders and that gospel advancing ministry philosophy, seed chucking, greenhouse effect, addition, multiplication, all of it works together so that we see disciple makers in and through the next generation.

54:41

I see what you did there, Jason. You skipped straight to the end to the gospel.

54:47

You skipped several questions so that there could be a part two, right? We can come, we got, we can answer more questions, but what was, it was burning deep in my heart.

54:55

I actually felt bad I put it off that long. It's just in me. It's in us as believers.

55:01

You wanted to skip to the good part. Oh, it is, it's in every believing teen. And we just need to draw it out and awaken it and then unleash them to reach their friends.

55:11

Yeah, yeah. It's a good thing that you took us there and I would love to have you, I was joking, but I would love to have you come back for part two and answer more questions and just have a conversation with you because this is awesome.

55:24

So I appreciate you taking us there. And even as believers, you were going through the cross -check of the gospel and you were sharing the gospel with us, but even as believers, we're encouraged to preach the gospel to ourselves.

55:39

Yes. As believers, we still go, we still struggle with temptation. We still struggle with sin.

55:45

We still struggle with difficulties on this earth because we still live in a fallen world.

55:52

So there's struggles, there's days that we're down. And so as we go back through, and this goes back to the sharing the gospel helps me grow as a believer.

56:02

I'm sharing the gospel with myself and therefore I'm being reminded of the hope that lies within me.

56:09

Absolutely. Like it's a myth or a misnomer in Christianity to think that once I become a believer and I hear the gospel, then

56:16

I grow beyond or past the gospel. The essence of the Christian life is that we grow deeper in the gospel and our understanding of it.

56:24

And I would even put it this way, Rob, every issue that we face on this earth is a gospel issue. My identity is because I don't understand correctly that I was created in the image of God for relationship with God and how to rightly relate with the people of God in his church.

56:40

Every behavioral issue I struggle with is a sin issue that is part of my fallen nature that God wants to redeem.

56:47

The list goes on and on, but every issue we face, it's not something in addition to the gospel that we need to learn to conquer that it is resting in the power of the gospel that gives us victory over that.

57:00

That's right. Dan, did you have any last questions? No, that was good. Man, y 'all got me fired up.

57:08

Well, we hope you will come back. I mean, I enjoyed the conversation. So thankful that you joined us, brother, for this conversation, sharing the gospel.

57:16

And tell us one more time where folks can find you and find these resources. Yeah, absolutely.

57:22

Check out our website, dare2share .org. So D -A -R -E, the number two, S -H -A -R -E .org.

57:29

I'm on Facebook, Jason G. Lamb. I'm on Instagram, D2S Jason. Feel free to reach out.

57:35

I love connecting, especially if you're a youth leader out there in the local church or you're serving your local church. Man, we'd love to be connected.

57:42

Check out the website. Feel free to reach out. But we are here to serve and love on the bride of Christ so that she can be all that she's supposed to be.

57:51

For us, again, the win is when the local church wins and the youth leader is all that God has called and created them to be.

57:59

Thank you, brother. We appreciate you so much. And where you can find us is truthandlovenetwork .com, laborsconference .com.

58:05

Thank you for your support. Thank you for watching. And we really appreciate it. And as Jason so clearly shared with us the gospel, our greatest call in this is the call to you to be encouraged by that gospel.

58:19

And if you do not know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, that you will repent of your sins and put your faith and trust in him.

58:25

That's what this is all about. And then all this other stuff that we talk about, we do to help us grow in the faith, but it's essential.

58:34

It's most important that you respond to that call to the gospel. And do that tonight if you haven't already.

58:41

And again, we thank you for watching the Truth and Love podcast. Remember, as always, Jesus is

58:46

King. Go live in the victory of Christ. Go speak with the authority of Christ and go share the gospel of Christ.