Operation Teenager Freedom
By Alistair Kent

Last October, as leaders of Eternity, Kate and I felt a strong call of God to take the youth up to a higher level.

The one verse that I personally had that I am convinced was from God is from Matthew 14:22-33 where Jesus called Peter out to meet him on the water. And quite simply the message God gave us was to 'step out of the boat' and trust in Jesus.

Although this conviction stayed with over the next few months, we realised that we hadn't actually done anything about it! We knew that God wanted us to grow, be more courageous, have more faith and all those kind of things, but needed to get involved in something so that we could actually gauge our developement.

Taking Action
That is why in March we came up with, what we believe was a God-inspired idea, of taking 40 days out of normal youth programme and tailoring everything we do around evangelism. We wanted to do something where we could look back and specifically say "this is the boat we stepped out of" rather than some general wishy-washy statement that attempts to make us sound like we've grown..

After a great deal of planning and preparation, we soon embarked on a mission we entitled 'Operation Teenager Freedom'. Inspired by the current conflict in the Far East 'Operation Iraqi Freedom', we wanted to impress upon the young people the severity of what we were doing. Obviously, we communicated the main difference was, that we wanted to set people free spiritually, not physically!

Briefing Weekend
The mission started on Easter Monday, but prior to that we spent all weekend at the Church on a retreat which we called the 'briefing weekend'. During this time we taught the young people how to share their testimony and how to communicate the gospel in a clear way. We also had sermons with titles like 'The Enemies Tactics' and 'Don't just Plug-in, Switch On!' (which was talking about the Holy Spirit giving us power to evangelise boldly and effectively).

On the Saturday morning we also took time out to deliver Easter gifts to all our neighbours up and down Wellin Lane and around the back of the church - we had a favourable response yet again.

After all this, including two sleepovers and an Easter morning service at 6am at the Embankment, the weekend finished with us doing a short presentation to the church during the Easter Sunday morning service. My personal highlight being Robin's song he wrote for the mission called 'the freedom song'.

The Tactics
The main thrust of the mission was to encourage the young people to embark on friendship evangelism, where they communicate the gospel to their friends on a one-to-one basis. We encouraged them to pray every morning for opportunities to share their faith. And it worked! As well as this we also put together some things as a group. One thing we felt we needed to do was to bridge gaps between the unsaved teenagers that our youth group. We also wanted to try and break down any wrong preconceptions they had about 'church'. 

As a result, we decided to put a couple of social events on (Ten Pin Bowling and a BBQ), so that they could just come along and fun with us, no other agenda - these were very successful. The main event that we put on together was a special gospel service which was held on a Friday night at the church. We used, drama, testimonies, video and dance as well as having a young evangelist come and preach. On top of much seed being sown we had the privilege of seeing two people come to Christ! Hallelujah!

Our mission finished on Friday 30th May with Paddy Venner ministering to us at the church. 

The Outcome
All in all, we reckon to have shared with about 50 teenagers, with two people getting saved. The spreading of the gospel was what we set out to do (Jesus does the saving, not us!). We were hoping for more to get saved, but I believe many of the people we spoke to will get saved, 'eventually'. There is much seed that has been sown, and although our 'mission' is over, the reality is that we are still under the great com-'mission' to go and make disciples - and that is what we intend to do.

Prayer is the Key
One significant thing that we received from God during this time, which we didn't expect, was a spirit of prayer burning throughout the group. This was to the extent that, half way through the mission, we called an all night prayer meeting - it was simply awesome - who said prayer was boring! 

We also turned our Tuesday night cell meetings into prayer meetings and the level of prayer just got more and more intense as the weeks went on. I missed the last prayer meeting of the mission as I was committed to another meeting at the church, but when I got back home at about 9.30pm I just broke down crying because the young people were still praying, not just quiet prayers, but fervent ones, literally crying out to God for their friends to get saved! The presence of God was strong in our house that night.

It is obvious that we need to continue to pray in order to plough up the spiritual ground around us. Although we had great success in many ways, we found that the hearts of people are very hard, but we know that God can make them soft. We need to pray that God will lift the blindfolds that the devil has put upon believers. 

So with a mixture of continual prayer and sharing the gospel, we WILL see young people turn to God, and not just ones and two's, but in time, if we don't give up, in ten's and hundreds! What we have done is taken the first steps towards seeing the Eternity Vision become reality.