Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler, and I am so excited that 2020 is over. Now I don’t need to be negative, but I think we all recognize the fact that this past year has been unusual, and that is quite an understated word thereー”unusual.” And I’m looking forward to greater things ahead. 

And as much as January isn’t looking a whole lot better in a couple of different ways, we here at Thee Generation have really been seeking the Lord here these last several months about what God would have us do to be a greater blessing to you here in 2021. 

For those of you that don’t know, over the last two weeks, we issued a survey to you all to get a better idea about how we could help you, what’s been a blessing to you, and how we can serve you better. And I look forward to talking more about the results of that survey. But one of the things that I know was on your heart, surprisingly was something that was on our heart as well. 

Now this is going to sound funny to some of you, but I do recognize that sometimes when it comes to Thee Generation and our content here, all of us who talk, all of us who speak, all of us whoーI don’t know, whatever you call this on the podcast…preach? Whatever. We’re guys. And as guys, sometimes we don’t always totally get it when it comes to you girls. 

And so we have been working and praying and preparing, and I am pleased to announce that we’re gonna be providing some more girl-focused content to you, which I’ll say a little bit more about as well. 

Another thing that has been on our hearts really since the last Youth Summit, honestly, since the very beginning of Thee Generation, has been that big-picture vision that God’s put on our hearts. And that vision is to reach the world with the Gospel. 

And I think all of you, if you listen to this podcast on a regular basis, you understand that we’ve been trying to give you the pathway to reaching the world, and that pathway consists of two iterated steps. Those steps are: Surrender and Dependence. If we aren’t surrendered to the will of God, we will not accomplish the will of God. Likewise, if we do not depend upon the power of God, we won’t have what it takes to do what God has called us to do. 

However, I think sometimes that in the process of talking about total surrender and total dependenceーand again, I try not for this to be the case ever on our podcast and our youth summits and any of the resources that we produce…. But it’s easy to view surrender and dependence to be ends in-and-of themselves. 

Once again, if you’ve heard me speak on this podcast at all, you know that my passion is that we’ve got to reach the world with the Gospel. That’s the big-picture vision. 

Young people, 20 years from now, I fully expect for you who are listening to this podcast to be on the frontline of major Gospel breakthroughs on the mission field. I fully expect that some of you young men are going to be preaching evangelistic meetings and seeing scores of adults come to Jesus Christ through your Gospel witness. I fully expect that some of you are going to become pastors, pastors’ wives, Christian school teachers who are going to be digging into the lives of others and seeing mighty moves of God through your lives. 

Our job here on this podcast isn’t just to give you a general sense of direction. Our job is to get you to fulfill that big picture vision. And one of the important parts of that big picture vision is just understanding the opportunities that are out there. 

If you were at our last Thee Generation Youth Summit, you’ll remember the “Opportunity Workshops,” as we called them. We had several men talk about different mission fields and the stories and the people and the opportunities that were there to reach the world harvest fields. And we want to bring a little bit of that into what we do here in a more focused sense in the year 2021 as well. 

One other aspect thatーI’m going to give some real concrete, practical things here in just a secondーbut in the meantime, I want to say this: Another thing that we are very passionate about as well is the matter of purity. 

You know, we recognize that many of you that are listening, you’ve had major struggles as far as purity in your mind or purity in your heart, and perhaps even purity in your body. And so one of the things that we’re really gonna be focusing on here in this coming year is giving you some practical resources to help you live pure in an impure world. 

Another thing that came out in the pollーand again, I’ll give you more specifics on the poll in the futureーis you all wanted practical training in evangelism and discipleship. And Dr. Jim and I, for over a year now, we’ve been discussing one very practical way that we would like to equip young people to reach their mission field with the Gospel. 

We’re not just gonna talk about it. We’re gonna actually train young people to do it. And in fact, we’d like to get some feedback from you here in the near future about that. 

So you say, “Okay, these are some of the general things. This is nothing new, Mr. Bosler. What are you talking about ‘there are new things ahead when it comes to Thee Generation’?” Well, young people, I’m delighted to tell you that in the year 2021ーin fact, starting in Januaryーin fact, if we can pull it together, starting next week, we are gonna be starting three brand new programs on Thee Generation podcast. 

Now don’t worry, Dr. Jim and I will continue to speak on a regular basis. We plan on speaking two regular podcasts per month, but interspersed throughout the month we’re also gonna have three other programs. And I know these are gonna be a huge blessing to you.

The first one is going to be this: it’s going to be called Faith Talks And that’s gonna be co-hosted by two who are actually gonna introduce themselves here in just a second. But this is a monthly girl-focused program designed to help young ladies discover greater ways to nurture and exercise their faith and surrender in their day-to-day walk of life. 

So in fact, we’ve got Janna here, and she is gonna share with you, introduce herself just a little bit and her cohost and tell us just a little bit more about her program. So Janna, take it away!

Janna Van Gelderen: Hello there, I’m Janna Faith. 

Anna Gillmore: And I’m Anna Faith. 

Janna: And we will be co-hosting the Faith Talks program on the Thee Generation Podcast. 

Anna: In our program. We will be discovering together how to walk by faith in a world that screams for us to let our emotions dictate how we live. 

Janna: Wow, this year has definitely been a year of unanswered questions for all of us! In this podcast, we’re going to be focusing on questions young ladies often ask and how they can be answered in God’s Word. 

Anna: We are excited to be able to hear from past and present day women of faith who have walked with God even when life didn’t make sense. 

Janna: You know, have you ever felt like you were the only one that struggled with a certain issue? 

Anna: We definitely have, and we want you to know that God has given you all the resources you need to set you free. Let’s not just live a life where we talk about faith, but one where we walk by faith. 

Janna: We are looking forward to helping you grow in your faith walk this coming year. 

Bobby: All right, thank you, Janna. That isーfor those of you that are keeping trackーthe girl-focused content that you asked for that we’ve been actually planning on and that we are delighted to give to you. 

The second brand new program that we’re gonna be presenting to you here this year is something entitled “GoMission.” One of my pastors back home at my home church is one of my biggest heroes. This is a man with a vision. If you’ve come to the Youth Summit, you’ve heard him. You’ve heard him from time to time on the podcast. But this GoMission podcast is a monthly missions-focused program designed to expose young people to the people, stories, and opportunities happening across the globe in the world’s harvest fields. 

And Pastor Mark Gillmore is our missions pastor. I tell you, every time I get together with Pastor Gillmore, he has some new story of what God is doing on some mission field somewhere to share. In fact, he’s got a whole class at Baptist College of Ministry called “World Harvest Fields” where he takes you through these things. And he’s agreed here this year to do a monthly program where he talks through those stories. 

And so Pastor Gillmore, can you please share with us what you are envisioning? Introduce yourself and share with us what you’re envisioning for this program. 

Mark Gillmore: Hi, I’m Mark Gillmore, and I’ll be hosting the GoMission program on the Thee Generation Podcast. In my program I’ll be highlighting amazing accounts of Gospel advance in our day, and I’ll be challenging and equipping you for obedience to Christ’s command to go and bring the Gospel to every person. 

Do you know that there are still regions of the world that have never heard of Jesus? Do you know that wrong ideas of mission work keep millions in darkness? Do you know that you are part of the solution? So many believers remain ignorant and thus indifferent to the need and opportunity of our day. The command from Jesus is clear, “Go.” And His Word and His Spirit show us how. I’m looking forward to helping you gain the information and skills that you need to join Jesus in His GoMission. 

Bobby: All right. And lastly, but not least, we have one more program that I want to introduce to you. This is going to be a monthly purity-focused program designed to offer practical tools based on biblical principles so that anyone can experience full purity for themselves and lead others to do the same. 

We recognize, young people, some of you have some real serious struggles, and what we want to do is we want to have a program dedicated to helping you. It could be a guy, it could be a girlーdoesn’t matter who you are, and frankly, doesn’t matter how old you are. Ryan Swanson is going to be offering practical principles, as I said, and offering biblical insights into how to live victorious. 

In fact, Ryan, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself and share not only the title of your program, but what your program is gonna be all about. 

Ryan Swanson: Hi, I’m Ryan Swanson, and I’ll be hosting the Satisfied program on the Thee Generation Podcast. Did you know that you and I and every person is born with a God-shaped hole in our heart? Although there is nothing other than God who can fill that hole and satisfy its void, many of us have turned to other substances to cover it. Things that according to Proverbs are destroying our own souls. In this podcast, we get real. Fast. We will uncover the hole and learn how to be satisfied with nothing but Jesus. 

I’m thrilled to share with you both practical tools and biblical principles that are currently freeing men and women from their own lusts to live lives of purity and integrity. I’m confident that God will use this program to transform your desires and lifestyle to be less gratified and more satisfied. 

Bobby: All right. Well, thank you so much for that, Ryan. You know, you may notice a few other little things that are different with the podcast. There’s just a few other things that we’re trying to help make it more helpful and more concise, and to make it a little easier for us to get these podcasts out the door so we can stay on schedule as well. 

But there is one other thing. I mentioned that we wanted to offer some practical training resources to help you in the matter of evangelism and discipleship. And while I can’t give all the details here at this point, this year God gave us a vision that God wants to use young people like yourself in your spheres of influence to reach your peers with the Gospel. 

And so again, I’m not going to officially announce the dates yet, but in July, what we are wanting to do is we’re wanting to gather a small group of young people from just maybe a handful of churchesーfour or five, six churchesーwe’ll see what the interest is. We want to actually gather them in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, young people who attend public schools. And we actually want to spend some time and talk through how, and train you, young people, on how you can reach your peers in the public school.

We’ll train you on how to use Gospel resources, which we’ll put into your hands. We’ll train you on how to, in your public school, get a Gospel-focused Bible study going. We’ll train you on how to get your youth pastor in the loop, and how to connect your youth pastor to the young people in your school. We’ll teach you practically how to lead them to Jesus Christ, what to do once they’ve gotten saved, and then how to get them plugged in and integrated into your local church. 

There are several stories on the podcast of young people who had meetings in their own public school that blew the doors wide open. And real, genuine youth movements have begun in those places. And honestly, we’re praying that God would use you to bring revival in your public school. 

Again there’s much more that we would like to say regarding this, and in fact, if you’re listening and you think, “Man, that’s something I’d be interested in,” talk to your youth pastor, have them reach out to us on the website. They can just go to the “Your Story” (the testimony page) and reach out to us there. 

But we are very excited. Again, there’s a lot more to do as far as getting prepared for this and developing the material. But we know that you have a great potential to reach your public school with the Gospel, and we want to equip and train you in how to do it. 

I would like to have other kinds of focused training opportunities in the future where maybe regionally we get together with you, maybe in your youth group. Maybe several youth groups gathering in an area of serious-minded young people who want to actually be equipped in how to give the Gospel, how to lead people to Christ, how to disciple people, and we’ll talk more about that in the days and months ahead 

So this has largely been an announcement podcast here today, but let me just leave you with this here briefly. You know, as we look at a new year that has just rolled overー2020 to 2021ーI just want to challenge you: Are you gonna let this year be the same as last year?

 You know, I just spoke last night, as the time of this recording, to a group of folks about spending time with God. And maybe you’ve been meaning to get a definite plan when it comes to spending time with God, but you haven’t actually formulated that plan yet. 

Can I challenge you, young people: Don’t wait for a perfect plan to roll across your lap. Start spending time with God. Don’t necessarily say, “Oh, it has to be an hour…” though honestly, I would encourage you to spend an hour with God, but don’t let the prospect of an hour discourage you from taking a half hour (or 10 minutes, frankly) with God. 

Spend time with God every day. And as we head into this new year, things may change drastically in our country and our world, but I believe that if we will walk with God, if we’ll spend time with Jesus, if we will understand, absorb, and obey His Word, I really do believe that the best days are yet to come. 

And so as we look at this new year, we want to give you some new tools to help you in your walk with Jesus C hrist. But don’t forget about the old tools that have been in your tool belt all along: the Word of God, Prayer. 

Spend time with God this year. Take advantage of these resources that we’re going to be placing in front of you. And honestly, young people, I pray that this new year will be the best one you’ve ever experienced. 

Surrender to God. Depend on His power to reach the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.