Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m speaking today from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, where both the War Team and the War of Special Forces Team has finished up our tour, and we’re back here together swapping stories, glorying in what God has done. For those of you that don’t know, the War of Special Forces Team is a team led by Jim Van Gelderen all over the country, ministering in Christian schools. Their byline is, revive your school and reach the world.

The War Team, I’ve shared with you some of what God has done, and our focus is primarily evangelistic. We come to local churches and bring in young people from the community and preach the gospel to them in a three-night rally. And what we’re going to do here today is I’ve gathered the three rookies who traveled here. A rookie is somebody who has not traveled before.

We call those who’ve traveled before veterans. But these three guys, Gabe Reisinger, Charlie Stratton, and Ben Reisinger, traveled for the first time on one of our evangelistic teams. And I know for me, when I traveled back in 2005, God taught me many things. It was a revolutionary period of time in my life where God taught me how to depend upon the Lord and walk with him on a day-to-day basis.

And so we’re going to have them share just a little bit of what God showed them, how God spoke to them over this semester, and how they think that’s going to carry them into the future. So first, Gabe Reisinger traveled with the War of Special Forces team as the Super SEAL team captain. And I saw many, many pictures of him winning. I don’t know what the stats were on that.

I don’t know if you want to share a little bit of that, of what the stats were for the tour.

We finished with a tie, actually.

Oh, wow.

The Army Rangers and Navy SEALs tie.

Oh, that’s amazing. That is amazing. I love the competition aspect of these things. Well, Gabe, share with us just briefly what God taught you here this semester as you traveled with Dr.

Jim and the War of Special Forces team.

If I could put my finger on just one main thing that the Lord really taught me this semester was just a whole new level of dependence on him. Every week I’d hear Dr. Jim preach of the same sermon. It was the 0-100.

And every week I’d be just reminded, wow, I really need this. And I remember time and time again just crying out to God, especially Thursday. Thursday was my favorite day. But at the same time, it was the day I looked forward to the most, you’d say, fear and trepidation. at this Thursday’s team meeting.

So it was the opportunity for the team captains to preach to our team. And I remember every Thursday, we come to Thursday, and the kids had already heard Dr. Jim preach four times. And in my mind, I’m thinking, what can I possibly say that Dr.

Jim hasn’t already said? What is going to make these teenagers make a decision for Jesus Christ from something that I said that Dr. Jim hasn’t already said? And I was spending time and time again crying out to God and saying, God, you have to work here.

And it was so incredible. of times when you hit Friday and you have that testimony service and for a teenager to stand up and say that the Lord used my team captain gave his message or his testimony on Thursday I also share my testimony on Thursday to impact their life and it was so humbling to me because it was all God um had nothing to do with me you know it has nothing to do with my speaking ability or my ability to preach um it was just God working through me and it was just the Lord continually showed me just a home level dependence on him that I really am zero and he is 100. Amen. Amen. Praise

the Lord. The opportunities the team captains get on War of Special Forces really is exciting. Again, the schedule of the week, Dr. Jim preaches every morning in chapel.

And on Thursday, after the first night of evening rallies on Wednesday night, the team captains get an opportunity to preach to their own team in the Christian school. And it’s a great opportunity of service there. Well, Charlie, Charlie traveled with me. He is the army team captain.

And they had a, they had a good, I was thinking you just might end up making a comeback. Charlie and the army team were rallying. They, they could not lose another week. And then they did, but it was a great, it was a great tour.

I definitely, it was, it was very good. And I know the Lord taught you a lot, Charlie, just briefly share with us what, what the Lord was teaching you here this semester. The Lord showed me two things really. One of the biggest things

that he showed me was that I had to rely on him for many things that were totally out of my wheelhouse. Things like, for instance, recruiting. We would go out inviting teenagers. I’m from the swamps of northern Minnesota and we were down in the big cities of Florida and I had to go talk to a group of teens, someone that I had never seen before and I had to totally rely on God to connect with them because there’s nothing, nothing in what I am as Charlie Stratton from Pine City, Minnesota that could connect to them.

But I saw God use me, able to talk to them, able to become friends with someone that I’d never crossed paths with in my life and able to see them come out and get saved. The same thing with counseling situations. After the invitation, after Brother Bosler was given the gospel, we go back and sometimes there’s kids with incredible baggage and confusion from false teachings and from other churches that may have gone to. And God is able to use me, bring verses to mine, bring words to say to help people break through that false teaching and help them to see the light of the gospel.

One of the biggest things that I saw, as I’ve seen in all the churches that have been around, I’ve seen God is moving in a circle. God is moving His churches toward revival in a circle broader than just a select group that all have the same idea. God is moving in people unconnected with Baptist College of Ministry, The school I attend, I’m connected with people that I know, but they all have the same burden. God is definitely moving in America to work in a revival.

Amen. That’s good. It was exciting as well just to see the burden and passion for discipleship, for evangelism, for seeking God’s face to come down and do a work in hearts. I think it’s a common theme of God’s children.

And well, what we’re going to do here is we’re going to then have Ben. Now, Ben, you won the tour. How does that make you feel?

That was good. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed winning.

I have to say, I cheered for the Army team. I always cheer for the underdog, and I did cheer for the Army team a bit during those last couple weeks, just kind of hoping. I’m always for a comeback. But you weren’t really for a comeback, though, at least not for the Army team.

No, no. Well, I know the Lord did a deep work in your heart as well. If you could maybe care to share just a few things God taught you here this semester.

The biggest thing for me was I’d heard about the whole Matthew 14, step out of the boat, rely on God, and then that we have everything we need. We have everything we need in Jesus. We have everything we need for everyday life, for tough situations, for different things. But I never had been placed in a situation before where I had to take that truth personally every day, all the time.

Sometimes I enjoyed recruiting. Sometimes I did not. And you go out and say, talk to this big group over here, talk to that group over there. And something I noticed was if I saw a group of, say, high school guys, whatever, somebody that I can connect with that, you know, they don’t look totally, you know, freak show or whatever, I would go over and just, you know, okay, I got this, cool.

And sometimes it would turn out absolutely horribly. Whereas another group would be like, oh, this is bad, you know, don’t really want to talk to, really, really, really don’t want to go talk to those people. And so I would go relying on the Lord to work through me, and he would. the biggest truth I was challenged with this semester was when we go accessing what the Lord has accessing Him He will work if we don’t ask for it He doesn’t deliver it I mean He may choose to but it was really neat to see particularly in the fishing times after the services we would look for ones who raised their hand maybe didn’t go back and there would always be a few and we’d go talk to them afterwards. Sometimes it was 100 kids in the room and they stand up and it’s just, okay, Lord, where do I start?

And it was really neat to see the Lord leading you to specific people who were ready right away. Yes. So I was just overall just very encouraged with the fact that the Lord has the resources we need and he wants us to access them and when we ask him to deliver, he does. Amen.

Amen. You know, there’s something to be said. You know, many of us, we can have the missions trip mentality where we depend on God for one crisis or maybe a couple crises. But I think what all three of these guys would say that God taught them was when you are put in the frying pan every single day, you begin to almost out of habit learn to depend upon Lord to do the impossible.

And that is a kind of lesson that can change your life. And I just want to say this, for those of you that are listening, you might think, wow, I don’t know that I could ever go out and travel on a team like that or and invite people to come to an event or go and talk to people about their souls after a gospel message. But you know what? If you’ll depend on the Lord, you can do anything he wants you to do.

And in fact, I’ll say one more thing. If something like this interests you, if this stirs your heart, if you think, wow, I wish I could learn lessons like that, you find yourself in Bible college one day, give us a call. We are looking for young people who have a heart to depend on the Lord and see God do great things through their lives. And we would love to have maybe some of you who are listening.

Maybe I’ve never met you before, but it could be maybe you could travel on a team like ours and learn some of these lessons, but you don’t have to travel on a team like ours to use these lessons. You can walk with God and depend on him every day. In fact, that’s what it means to be a part of the V generation, to live a life of total surrender and total dependence. Thank you so much for listening here today.

God bless you.

That’s T-H-E-E generation.org. .