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Knowing God

Need for God

For the Leader
Veteran youth leader and educator Dave Rahn led a research team on a two-year mission to discover why some youth groups are so effective at evangelism. They discovered several keys that unlock teenagers' deep need for God and motivate them to share Christ's love with others.
Teenagers who effectively evangelize are different from their peers in three ways-they pray more often, invite more often, and tell others about Jesus more often. No earthshaking surprises here . . . but isn't it convicting when painstaking research supports and fuels what we know to be true experientially? If you set out to create a job description for a spiritually mature young person, these three disciplines could form its core.
Pray-It makes sense that teenagers who spend the most time praying for their friends see a greater number of them come to Christ.
Invite-The evangelistically effective teenagers in Rahn's study were more likely than an average Christian teenager to invite friends to places (large group meetings and small cell gatherings) and conversations (with adult Christians and themselves) where they're likely to hear the gospel. And these teenagers say they feel sure that their invited friend will enjoy what happens during the meeting or conversation.
Tell it-Teenagers who are effective evangelizers simply tell others the gospel story, and their own faith story, more frequently than their Christian peers. In baseball-ese, they hit more home runs because they're getting more at-bats.
Use these ideas to help teenagers understand their deep need for God-and motivate them to recognize this need in others as they seek to share Jesus with their friends.
Key Scriptures
To see what the Bible says about our need for God, read these passages:
Ecclesiastes 2:10-11
Matthew 5:6
John 3:16
Devotion
A Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
Spiritual growth isn't like Sunday school: You don't automatically graduate to the next level just because you...