In March of 2003, I was on a three-week preaching tour to the United States, my first such trip since 911 when I was in New York City. In one of my ministry stopovers, I came to the city of St. Louis, one of the great historical cities in the heartland of America. On a Tuesday night, I had the opportunity to minister in Pastor Rick Shelton's Life Christian Center, a thriving congregation of several thousand members. (Brother Shelton is also widely known as the pastor of famous television preacher Joyce Meyer.)



As the church came together for the midweek service, I was very touched by the fire and passion for Jesus the youth expressed in their worship. There was a moment in the meeting when Pastor Shelton allowed two teenagers to come forward to lead the entire church in prayer. They were praying for revival among their peers in the high schools and colleges. Although they looked a little scruffy and weren't religiously eloquent in their prayers, there was a tangible, genuine, heartfelt cry for revival in their intercession. I saw a spiritual hunger within them for God that I have not seen among young people in a long, long time.

As I stood there among the pastors in the front row, I began to sense the Holy Spirit moving in my heart and speaking clearly to me, "Kong, it's time to stir up the young people in City Harvest again! Start reaching out more uncompromisingly to the youth!"

For the next two days, I could hardly focus on anything else as the presence of God was all over me. My heart was aching for the young people of Singapore. When I shared this burden to Brother Shelton over tea, he was visibly moved. He began to encourage me by saying, "Kong, you are so privileged. You are just a young man yourself and already God is revealing to you the need to reach out to the next generation. You don't have to make the same mistake we have all made, and wake up one morning to realize that your team around you are all older people. And that you have lost a whole generation of young ones." He then handed me a very informative book on campus ministry called Every Nation in Our Generation by Rice Broocks. (A substantial amount of information in this article is gleaned from that book.)

Whether we like it or not, all of us in City Harvest Church are part of a great, exciting revival that started with a handful of teenagers in 1989. And this has been one of the most amazing stories in the history of Christianity in Southeast Asia. However, if we don't reach out to the youth of our day, this revival will be over in one generation!

God is a transgenerational God. All throughout the Bible, He reveals Himself as "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." He wants the power and the blessings He has given to us to be passed on to our children and our children's children.

That your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth. (Deut. 11:21)

The Bible is very clear that God wants to "multiply" His glory from generation to generation, bringing heaven down to the earth. This is so vital because true revival is not just for one group of people for one season of time. True revival transforms entire cultures, ways of thinking and generational lifestyles.

Churches often grow up with their founding pastor as ours has. When we first started out, the whole church was made up of teenagers. But as I grow older in age, the demographics of the congregation also crept up correspondingly from youth to adulthood. Today, the average age in City Harvest has steadily increased to 26 years old and it will keep on increasing upward. We are now a church full of working professionals, administrators, managers, investors and entrepreneurs. And if there is no continual supply of young people, there can be no lasting change. Ours will be nothing more than a one-revival wonder and this work that was started 14 years ago will end in one generation!

Therefore there are key questions we need to ask ourselves:

"THE 13/30 WINDOW"

Missiologoists have coined the term "the 10/40 Window," defining the geographical region 10 degrees to 40 degrees north of the Equator, an area of the globe considered by many to be the most unreached and unevangelized region of the world. But what is more crucial for us to consider is not "the 10/40 Window" but "the 13/30 Window." This defines the age group of people between 13 to 30 years old, which is really the greatest harvest field in the world today.

First of all, this age group is most open to the gospel. Secondly, it is the most important group because they are the future of the Church and the world. As such, when you reach the youth, you affect the future of Christianity and the whole world. Just look at the facts according to the UN Population Division and the Population Reference Bureau (2000):

In Singapore and Hong Kong, one in five of the population is a teenager or a young adult (the UN defines a "young adult" as someone between the ages of 19 to 24 years old). In China and Taiwan, one in four (25 percent) of the population is a teenager or a young adult. In Malaysia and Indonesia, the ratio is one in three (30 percent).

This age group is the greatest harvest field because it is Jesus Christ into their hearts before they hit 30 years of age. 75 percent become born again before they are 25 years old. (One survey even records as early as 19 years old!)

Since the Day of Pentecost 2,000 years ago, God has been pouring out His Holy Spirit upon the youth.

"And it shall come to pass in the last days," says God, "that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams." (Acts 2:17)

Sometimes, we think it is very hard to reach out to the young people. The prevailing presumption is that they are all too consumed by worldly pursuits and secular entertainment.

"Kong, it is too hard ... the youth are too busy with their studies. They have no time for God or the Church!"

"Kong, you don't understand how difficult it is ... the youth today are too consumed with sports and entertainment. They have no time for God or the Church!"

Actually, nothing can be further from the truth. The disappointment with the sexual revolution, drug revolution, divorced families, politics, wars, and distrust for social institutions and school systems have caused youth to be hungrier for God and spiritual truths more than any other generation in recent times. Even Douglas Coupland, an unbeliever who coined the phrase "Generation X" has this to say:

"My secret is that I need God. I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love."

What an opportunity it is for the kingdom of God! Never before in the history of mankind have more people been more open to hear the truth of the gospel. Never before has there been a greater spiritual battle for the life and destiny of the youth. And the devil knows that!

SATAN HATES YOUNG PEOPLE

Satan knows that the 13/30 Window is most open to God. He knows that if he gets to the youth first, he will affect the future of humanity. All throughout the Bible and world history, the devil has been targeting young people to distract them, or to destroy them.

When Moses was born, Satan knew that this baby would deliver the Israelites from Egypt. So he inspired Pharaoh to kill all the male Hebrew babies. One thousand five hundred years later, the ultimate Deliverer, Jesus Christ, was born in Bethlehem. Satan inspired Herod to do the same — to kill all the babies throughout the land.

Scholars, like Vinson Synan, have called the last 100 years "The Century of the Holy Spirit." God had indeed poured out His Spirit upon all flesh. We have all been inspired by the great stories of the Welsh Revival, the Azusa Street Revival, the Charismatic Renewal, and the Jesus Movement.

Yet, at the same time, Satan made sure that the last 100 years was also the bloodiest century in world history. Adolf Hitler raised up millions of youth in World War II that killed 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. Dictators like Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin raised up armies of youth that brutally massacred tens of millions of innocent people to expand Communism throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. Lenin once said, "Give me four years to teach the children, and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted."

Strongmen like Mao Zedong had a personal philosophy to recruit the youth of China into his Red Guards. His army of young people were willing to betray their own parents and families for the ideology of Chairman Mao. During the Cultural Revolution, the brainwashed youngsters of the Red Guards mercilessly killed 20 million people in a 10-year period from 1966 to 1976.

Others like Pol Pot's Red Army was also made up of teenagers and those in their early twenties. 2 million people were brutally massacred in the killing fields of Cambodia. In the last 10 years, the genocides in Rwanda and the Intifada in the Middle East had killed thousands upon thousands of innocent people. Again, all the atrocities were primarily carried out by young people.

Whenever God has a great plan, the devil would scheme to hatch an evil plot. As much as the Holy Spirit has moved mightily among the young people in the last 100 years, the devil at the same time, has also waged a very intense war against the youth. He didn't want them to walk in their God-given, redemptive destiny. Instead, Satan got them to do his "dirty deeds" by spilling their blood and killing by the millions.