Friday, February 25, 2005
NEW BOOK, "BATTLE CRY FOR
A GENERATION"
SEEKS TO
RALLY YOUNG PEOPLE TO FIGHT
SECULARIZATION
OF SOCIETY
By Michael Ireland
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA (ANS) -- Ron
Luce is the president and founder of Teen Mania Ministries and Acquire
the Fire, which runs youth events all over America and Canada capturing
the hearts of young people and giving them a chance to understand what
it means to really build their life on the Word of God.
Luce organizes mission trips around the world for young people --
called global expeditions -- where he takes four or five thousand young
people each summer to 20 or 30 different countries “reaching as many
people as they can while they’re young and watching the Lord use them
to change their generation.”
In an interview with Peter Wooding, senior news editor for United
Christian Broadcasters (UCB) at this year’s National Religious
Broadcasters’ (NRB) convention in Anaheim, California, Wooding asked
Luce if he saw more hunger among young people to get involved in
missions? (Pictured: Ron Luce being
interviewed by Peter Wooding at NRB 2005).
Luce agreed that young people “want that kind of challenge to do
something to change the world.
“Absolutely! Young people want to know that their life counts for
something. They’re not just here to have fun; they’re here to make a
difference, and make an impact. And we have a lot of these young people
then that come to our campus in Texas for what we call the Honor
Academy, where it’s a whole year of growing in the Lord, and becoming
leaders, and learning how to make a difference with their life for the
rest of their life. They come from all over the United States and other
countries for one year of in-your-face, go-for-broke, no-excuses,
hold-nothing-back kind of Christianity, so it’s very, very exciting,”
Luce said.
Luce is coming out with a new book called “Battle Cry For A
Generation.”
He told Wooding: “Well, it’s called ‘Battle Cry for a Generation,’ and
it’s time right now in the United States and around the world where
young people -- there’s a critical moment that we are living right in
the middle of right now -- and that is that there’s so few of them that
really believe in the Lord, and that really believe that the Bible is
true, and they think God’s unrelatable, that it doesn’t have anything
to do with my life.”
Luce told Wooding: “And here in the United States it’s the largest
generation ever, and so whatever direction they go in, so will go
America and, you know, their interests, their buying power, and so on
and so forth.”
He stressed the immediacy of the situation. “We want to do our best to
try to preserve this nation, the Christian heritage that we had when it
was founded, and at the present rate only 4 percent of this generation
is going to be on-fire, Biblically-based Christians, and so our
heartbeat is to wake up pastors, wake up moms and dads, adults,
laypeople—right now is the time to focus on young people, reach
out—it’s not five years from now, it’s not ten years from now; it’s
right now, and everybody can do something.”
Luce likened the current situation to when the Nazis were marching on
Europe and taking nation after nation, and then “they began to invade
England with the bombing raids and it seemed hopeless.
“Where really then our English friends came together with the American
people and we put together the invasion of Normandy plan, which was a
very well thought-through battle plan, and that’s what’s really needed
right now to rescue a generation: a well thought through battle plan to
capture the hearts of this generation.”
Luce continued: “We’ve got all kinds of perverted music, perverted
stuff on the Internet, you know, perverted movies that are just
poisoning the hearts and minds of a whole young generation. And so part
of this battle plan is—the first part is to wake up the church, wake up
the leaders, wake up the moms and dads, and say, ‘Now is the time to do
something.’
“You can’t just say, ‘I don’t feel led.’ Well, put a bullet in your
pocket and feel some lead. We all have to be involved. If you’re a
grandparent, you can do something. If you’re a businessman, you can do
something. If you’re the parent of a teenager, you can do something. If
you’re twenty-something, you can do something to help reach this
generation. You can’t just say, ‘Well, it’s not my calling.’ Well, you
know, when there’s a tragedy about ready to happen right in front of
our face, you’ve got to do something to help prevent it, and we all can
do that.”
Luce explained: “The book talks about the urgency of the moment we live
in, and then the plan: What can we do to rescue this generation? And,
really, there’s a place for all of it. Part of what we touch on in the
book is the secularization of our culture, which has produced the
sexualization of our culture, and that our standards -- really, across
the borders -- have dropped and dropped, so now it’s appropriate to
have all kinds of horrible sexual things in magazines, even teen
magazines -- 10 best sex tips -- this is being sold to junior high, you
know, teenagers.”
Luce said that modern television programs “contain all kinds of sexual
innuendos: 12- to 17-year-olds are the largest viewers of pornography
online -- it’s not dirty old men, it’s 12- to 17-year-olds.
“So these guys are going after our young people, poisoning their minds.
What’s that going to do to their marriages? What’s that going to do
when they grow up and they try to have some kind of healthy sexual
relationship with the person they’re going to live with forever?”
Luce said studies have shown that “pornography really messes people up
long-term.
“They form an emotional bond with whatever they’re looking at when
they’re sexually stimulated, and so then they get into a marriage
relationship and they can’t be sexually stimulated anymore and they
really become impotent, so you have drugs like Viagra and other things
that you need -- and it’s not just the older people that need it,
people are needing it -- the younger people are needing it just to have
a normal sexual relationship.”
He said some have called pornography “the impotence industry. (Really),
that what it promises it certainly doesn’t deliver. And this is just
one piece, one picture, one small piece of what our young people are
living through, that they’re being bombarded with, and we have got to
come to their rescue.
“We Christians, decent people, moral people, anybody that loves any
kind of virtue whatsoever, we need to rally around them and say, ‘You
know what? We’re going to rescue you, we’re going to bring you to
Christ, we’re going to help you understand why the Bible is so
relevant, and how living what the Bible says will protect you.’ ”
Wooding asked Luce how the government is responding to what he was
trying to do? Are they supportive of this campaign?
“Well, there are some in the government that are very moral people and
that have taken a stand. There’s a governor here in Illinois who
recently outlawed the sale or the rental of violent videogames to
teenagers. Some of these videogames, you can solicit prostitutes, you
can plan murders, and so forth. He just outlawed it: ‘You’re going to
jail if you sell this or rent this to a teenager.’ And we need a lot
more politicians to rise up, like Wilberforce did in England, and say,
‘You know what? When something’s wrong, it’s wrong.’ And our Christian
virtue and our Christian faith ought to -- you know, it doesn’t matter
if it’s politically correct or not -- but we ought to stand up and say,
‘You know what? This is just not right.’ And even if it means our
political career, we’ve got to protect our kids no matter the cost.”
Luce said if people want to find out more about his ministry or the
book, they can click into www.teenmania.com and find out all about his
ministry. They can also visit www.battlecry.com and find out all about
the whole movement.
“You can get some free tools right there if you’re a parent, or if
you’re a youth pastor, or a if you’re a pastor, if you’re a
businessman, or you’re just concerned at all -- free tools online with
what you can do to help the kids right there in your own community,”
Luce said.
Wooding concluded the interview with a request for Luce to pray for UCB
listeners during the International Week of Prayer, when the British
Christian broadcaster will be airing a special broadcast leading them
in prayer over a number of issues.
Luce responded: “Father, we just ask right now that there would be a
spirit of purity that would be poured out across the land. That, Lord,
there would be a hunger and thirst for righteousness and for holiness
and for purity. Lord, we just rebuke the lies and the blinders that are
all around our kids, Lord, that have been shoved down their throat
through the media, through the Internet, through videogames. And, God,
we thank You for a spirit of purity and holiness, God, that the adults,
the moms and dads, would teach that to their kids, and that, Lord, the
young people would see the truth of Your Word and would long purity,
and would run to it because they would see how protected they are when
they live according to Your plan. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
| ** Michael Ireland is an
international British freelance journalist. A former reporter with a
London newspaper, Michael is the Chief Correspondent for ASSIST News
Service of Garden Grove, CA. Michael immigrated to the United States in
1982 and became a US citizen in Sept., 1995. He is married with two
children. Michael has also been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a
British Christian radio station. |
 |
|
