Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, an average of one shooting in a US high school per week – undeniably horrific events, and Americans across the country share a deep sorrow and concern, certainly for the tragic loss of live, but also for the darkness that bred such hatred and violence. News of drug use, promiscuity, unruliness, and lawlessness by our youth fill the Internet and airways, troubling our souls and raising fear for the next generation, but praise God, our youth are not lost and we need not fear.
The God who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, is still on the throne, and He is doing something radically different in many schools and in the hearts of young people. He is shining His light in the hallways, gyms, and classrooms, and students are being drawn to the light, which dispels the darkness, a light that brings those who follow it to the Way, the Truth, and the Life, to Jesus Christ.
Through the outpouring of Christ’s love by Zach Bolt and his co-laborers, with pizza and donuts thrown in, hundreds of students in Fredericksburg, VA, followed the free food and found themselves receiving the Bread of Life and Living Water, so they would never hunger or thirst again. Working with OneVoice, a ministry of the Prayer Furnace, which is dedicated to leading high school students to Christ by establishing Jesus Clubs in the high schools, these young ministers of the Gospel, led almost 200 students into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ in one school alone. And they are not done in that school; they have a mission, a passion, to lead the entire school to Christ.
While an administration may not want a Jesus Club in their school, with a student and a teacher as sponsors, they cannot deny the club the same access other clubs have on campus. Once they have established a club in the school, Zach and his teammates attend the weekly club meetings as guests, and they freely share the Gospel. They speak about a hope that rises above the hard and unlovely things in our society to the altogether beautiful place where Christ resides, and they disciple those who have chosen to follow Jesus, teaching them the Word of God and funneling them into local churches, so they can grow in faith and Christian maturity. They even held a baptism at one school with 100 students looking on as eight students were baptized – amazing!!!
Serving in Jesus’ Name is privileged to provide an ongoing stream of Bibles to OneVoice and to chip in for the pizza and donuts, for it delights our hearts to see lives transformed as the Lord, ever faithful to His Word, is clothing students with a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair, crowning them with beauty instead of ashes, that they might be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.[1]
[1] Isaiah 61:3
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