January 12, 2000
EDWIN WONG (center) of Chinese Baptist Church in Houston collects commitment cards from his friends on the final morning of YouthLink 2000 in the Astrohall. (BP photo by Denise McGill)
Youth ring in new era loudly, lovingly
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___HOUSTON--Satellite beams, heart-thumping music and love for Jesus connected more than 46,000 Southern Baptist teenagers coast-to-coast during YouthLink 2000, a millennial Christian celebration, Dec. 29-Jan 1.
___The teens--meeting simultaneously New Year's Eve in seven U.S. cities--sang "Shout to the Lord," counted down the seconds to midnight and shouted their personalcommitments to God as the clock announced the advent of what billions of people worldwide call a new millennium.
GUITARIST plays Christian rock music at Youthlink 2000.
___Then they continued to party to the beat of Christian rock bands, jumping and dancing in confetti and hundreds of balloons. The New Year's Eve celebration capped a three-night, two-day millennial festival, which also happened to be the largest youth gathering in Southern Baptist Convention history.
___YouthLink 2000 was sponsored by four SBC agencies--LifeWay Christian Resources, the International and North American mission boards and Woman's Missionary Union--as well as state conventions affiliated with the SBC. It began Wednesday night, Dec. 29, and stretched into the wee hours of Saturday morning, Jan. 1.
___The celebration attracted teens to arenas in seven U.S. cities--Anaheim, Calif.; Atlanta;Denver; Houston; Philadelphia; St. Louis; and Tampa, Fla.
___They arrived in the regalia of their youth. They wore baggy pants and clumpy shoes, ball caps and ponytails, and, depending on the locale, heavy sweaters or tank tops and T-shirts.
___They cheered, sang along and bounce-danced to ear-splitting, heart-pounding praise and worship music led by local and nationally known Christian rock bands. They listened as speakers challenged them to accept Jesus as Savior and called on them to provide the catalyst for reaching the world for Christ in the third millennium.
___They responded too. Out of 46,081 participants in all seven sites, 1,492 made professions of faith in Christ, 4,985 committed their lives to full-time Christian ministry and 9,131 expressed willingness to become missionaries if that's what God wants them to do. They also contributed $100,000 for missions, particularly to help start churches aimed at their generation and to share the gospel with people who never have heard of Jesus.
___In Houston, YouthLink attracted 10,270 participants. They recorded 250 professions offaith, 989 commitments to full-time ministry and 1,611 missions affirmations. They also raised $23,440 for missions.
A YOUTH from South Main Baptist Church in Pasadena scrapes paint from the building of Mission Bautista Adonai in Pasadena during a mission project at Youthlink 2000.
___While the students gathered in the seven locations thousands of miles apart, satellite technology brought them together. It even focused them halfway around the world.
___Standing in front of a television camera in Jerusalem, evangelist Jay Strack of Orlando, Fla., spoke to the teens every night of YouthLink. He challenged the stateside-but-scattered audience to be "soldiers for Christ."
___One of Strack's presentations began with a taped segment from Golgotha, "skull hill" outside the ancient walls of Jerusalem, where Roman soldiers crucified Jesus on a cross.
___As a camera panned the location, Strack told the Baptist teens and their friends, "This is the very spot where Jesus died for you."
___When that segment ended, Strack stood under a dark Middle Eastern sky, telecasting live at 3 a.m. Jerusalem time.
___"This isn't just a Sunday School story," Strack said of the crucifixion of Christ. "Jesus invaded time and space because 'God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him shall have everlasting life.' That's not only life that goes on for eternity, but life that begins right now."
___Jesus suffered an agonizing, humiliating death because he believed in the American teenagers gathered almost 2,000 years later, Strack told the crowds.
___"Please understand Jesus believes in you," he stressed. "You may not believe in him, but he believes in you. You may not have time for him, but he has time for you."
___In addition to believing in Jesus, Strack challenged the teens to belong to Jesus.
___"When you belong to him, you get a sudden desire to live for him," he noted, explaining that means telling others about Jesus and submitting themselves to his leadership.
___"I want you to be soldiers for him," he urged.
___Nightly "Global Link" segments also connected participants in each of the stateside sites to each other. For 30 minutes, they watched giant screens in each arena, seeing live action from each city. They sang together as bands led praise music. They laughed together as comedians egged them on.
___And they listened quietly--as quietly as tens of thousands of teens might be expected to listen--as Jimmy Draper, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, spoke to them from the Atlanta stage.
___"Hundreds of thousands of Southern Baptists are praying for you," Draper told the youngsters.
___Preparation for YouthLink has spanned 10 years and involved the efforts of hundreds of Southern Baptists in the SBC agencies and state conventions, he reported.
___"We did it because we believe the future impact of Southern Baptists is through you," he insisted.
___"God is going to speak to you this week in a very, veryspecial way. You don't have to wait until God speaks to you to answer. You can get on your knees and say: 'God, my answer is yes. Now, what do you want me to do?'"
___Draper thanked the teens for participating in YouthLink. He especially thanked their parents and church leaders "for their courage" in allowing the young people to assemble despite millennial fears that curtailed the anticipated turnout for the event, keeping it well below the 200,000 teens who were expected before Y2K fears became pandemic.
___"God was here long before Y2K was ever a problem," Draper declared to thunderous cheers, and he pledged that God would reward Southern Baptists and the teens for their faithfulness.
___"Out of those of you at YouthLink are those whom God will use to lead Southern Baptists and Christians worldwide to victory in the 21st century," he predicted.
___On New Year's Eve, speakers directed the students' attention beyond millennial celebrations to the personal and singular call of God upon their lives.
___In Tampa, students arrived wearing party hats and carrying laser pointers, confetti andnoisemakers. Bouncing blue beach balls from hand to hand was an added feature to the singing, clapping and standing of earlier praise and worship times.
STUDENTS relax with a lively game of Twister during Youthlink 2000.
___But the mood had turned to commitment as speaker Voddie Baucham asked, "What will you do for God?
___"If your purpose for being here tonight was to see who you could see or see how close you could get to the stage, then you've missed the whole point," said Baucham, a staff evangelist from Sagemont Baptist Church in Houston.
___"I pray that this would not be the most incredible night in your life," he said. "The most incredible night in your life ought to be the night the dream God puts in your heart comes to fruition. The fact that you're here means you're expecting something great from God. We have yet to see what God can do with this generation."
___In Atlanta, speaker David Nassar said, "Some of you will always remember this night as the night you collided with God, not the change of the millennium."
___"The one thing every one of us has in common tonight is that we are in need of a fresh movement of God in our lives," said Dave Edwards, a youth speaker and writer from Oklahoma City. "That's what Christianity is about--God doing something unique in your life that only he can do."
___In Denver, Josh McDowell of Campus Crusade Ministries challenged the young people to be more like Jesus in everything they do, even though they may not see the full picture of what they are called to do.
___"At your age, you cannot even begin to comprehend the depth of the message" of Jesus, McDowell said. "But you are needed for God's purpose in a mighty way."
___"True life is giving your life to Jesus," contemporary Christian music artist Rebecca St. James, a native of Australia now living in Franklin, Tenn., told teens in Tampa. "We need to take this conference as an opportunity to really get serious about our faith in God."
___In Atlanta, the lead singer of Smalltown Poets observed how impressive it was that the students were eager to express their faith in an often-frightening world. "You guys don't seem to be afraid, and that's cool," he said.
___Teresa Dickens of Woman's Missionary Union and James Dotson of the North American Mission Board also contributed to this story
___
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