Wednesday convocation has youth ministry focus

YOUTH QUEST PERFORMS

Youth Quest led the praise and worship time and performed special music at Wednesday’s convocation. Youth Quest is a student-based ministry that is an extension of the Liberty’s Center for Youth Ministries. Currently consisting of one traveling team made up of worship, drama and discipleship, their purpose is to provide spiritual encouragement to the youth and youth leaders of local churches.

SUMMIT MINISTRIES ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP

John Stonestreet, executive director of Summit Ministries, opened Liberty University’s Wednesday convocation with a prayer and announced that Summit Ministries will be partnering with Liberty’s Center for Youth Ministries to offer a two-week program for students and a one-week program for pastors and youth pastors to prepare them to spread the truth of the Gospel.

“We want a new generation of students who not only know why they are Christians but can defend the truth of Christianity when it comes into their path,” he said.

CENTER FOR YOUTH MINISTRY PRESENTS AWARDS

Dr. Steve Vandegriff, executive director of the Center for Youth Ministries, presented several awards for students who displayed a passion for ministry this year. Recipients included:

• Emily Ellington: Center for Women’s Ministry Founder’s Award for Student of the Year
• Craig Robinson: Center for Youth Ministries Founder’s Award for Male Student of the Year
• Jena Lauzon: Center for Youth Ministries Founder’s Award for Female Student of the Year
• Michael Harsch: Center for Youth Ministries for Alumnus of the Year

The Center for Youth Ministries exists to equip and challenge those called to youth work for a lifetime of effective ministry using their God given gifts and abilities to impact youth around the world.

Ron Luce encourages liberty students to be dreamers

Ron Luce, president and founder of Teen Mania Ministries, which sponsors the popular Acquire the Fire youth rallies, spoke at Wednesday’s convocation about the battle of dreams going on between the secular world and Christianity.

“The more in love with Jesus you fall, the more out of love with the world you fall because the world really has nothing,” he said.

Citing Ephesians 3:20, Luce said God gave Christians the ability to have a creative imagination and they must weed out the “dream killers,” such as the media, computers and the Internet, dumbed down reading and gossip magazines and people or family members who discourage dreams.

“They steal your dreams by stealing your time,” he said.

Luce went on to say Christians should be careful not to become paralyzed by the ordinary. He told students that 98 percent of people in the world follow culture and only 2 percent of people go out and shape the culture.

“Dreamers are not ordinary people, dreamers are people that shape the world. Dreamers are people who make a big change. They resist the ordinary,” he said.

Not only are there big dreamers such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Steve Jobs, but he said there are dreamers who are out there to work against the will of God and there needs to be strong Christians to counter that movement.

“Step out of the normal boring path,” he said. “Are we not dreamers? Can we not dream God’s dream?”

He closed with a challenge for students: “Whether it’s education, politics, entertainment — whatever realm you might go into — dream a dream for God.”