Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler, and I’m speaking to you today from the lobby of Falls Baptist Church, where we’ve just finished the final night of the 2021 The Generation Youth Summit.
Dr. Jim Van Geldren: Yes, this is Jim Van Gelderen, and we were a part of this this week in 2021. It’s hard to believe it’s over. Been about two days and one night worth of all kinds of things going on. We’ve had several services, and it has been a wonderful time.
Bobby: It sure has. The competition’s been pretty fierce.
Dr. Jim: Oh, the competition was a lot of fun.
Now, Brother Bosler can tell you we changed the themes, and he was a part of that. So I’ll let him tell you about changing the theme from the Cola Clash Plus to—
Bobby: The War Max. We really wanted to incorporate a little bit of a different theme, give a little bit of a different feel, a few different competitions and, of course, different teams. I told you about that last week.
Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy. And boy, they were into it.
Dr. Jim: It was very close. And the thing that was nice, there was not one team that just got ahead and stayed ahead. I mean, the lead changed several times. Last place changed. No one really knew who was going to win to the very end. It was a lot of fun.
Bobby:I actually thought—I thought Navy was going to win.
Dr. Jim: Well, they sure had the momentum.
Bobby: They had the momentum. But then the last couple of things, they just didn’t work out so well.
Dr. Jim: The Marines just came back in and won. And Air Force had a tough loss. They came in last. But the kids had a great time. It was great.
Bobby: Oh, I love some of those new competitions.
Dr. Jim: Well, right. Some of you that are war veterans, special forces veterans or Cola Clash veterans, we took some of the classic competition like Spoke Tackle, and Brother Bosler came up with different dynamics. I’ll let him tell you.
Bobby: We called it Duck, Duck, Boom. I’ve been very mysterious when I’ve said things about it. But essentially, it is Spoke Tackle, but with powder-paint grenades. And so we had them all line up, a circle of people all around the whole track. They ran, and there were literally 200 grenades, these powder grenades, flying across the field. I’ve heard—I haven’t seen them all yet, but I’ve heard. I saw one of the pictures. You just see these streams, this white smoke stream of this paint grenade flying.
We had kids. They weren’t supposed to get hit in the face, but they did anyway. Big powder patches on their face, backsides, their shirts. It was great.
Dr. Jim: Yeah, that was a great competition. Then, of course, we had another dynamic to big-ball volleyball. Some of you volleyball fans, you would love this one. I’ll let Brother Bowser tell you about this.
Bobby: It was called Bomber Ball, and we called it that not only as a callback to one of the early names for big-ball volleyball way back from the historic past, but we wanted to add that concept of the big ball being a bomb, an unpredictable explosion.
So we did four-way volleyball, but what we did for the first little bit is we did one ball, a randomized timer. As soon as the timer went off, whoever’s territory it was in lost a point. Then we ended up throwing in two, and that was absolutely insane.
Dr. Jim: Yeah, it was insane. Well, next time we’ll definitely do more to two-way and some of the games. Once we kind of got it down, we can add two balls, and the action is going to be intense. The kids really came from several different states, most of them here near the Midwest. I think the farthest would have been Virginia, maybe, or Florida.
Bobby: Florida, too.
Dr. Jim: Those were some of the farther states. But we had, you know, how many? How many we had?
Bobby: 270.
Dr. Jim: So we had a lot of young people here, and it was a blessing. And I sensed from the very start most of the young people seemed to be here for the right reason. I didn’t sense they were coming to be a problem or because they had to come. I felt like most of them wanted to be here.
Bobby: It was interesting. Just as we preached, and you’ll hear the sermons eventually once we get them all uploaded and up. I think we might even have video again this year.
But anyway, most of the sermons, you know, obviously, you know, you go after sin and different things. And there were good decisions regarding those things. But I really felt like the kids, once we got around to, like, the solution to Jesus, it’s like, okay, that’s what we came here for.
Dr. Jim: Well, there’s no doubt. In fact, I felt we turned the corner sooner than we normally did. Pastor Van Gelderen preached about abiding in the vine, which is a great truth.
And I just sensed that young people want something. They’re hungry. We had several young people that have been to some of our meetings in the last year, Special Forces. And certainly God did a work in their hearts in those weeks. But I think this solidified what God had done. And people from different venues, different connections, but definitely a hungry spirit.
Bobby: Oh, yeah, for sure. It was great to even just see the responses throughout the day, the conversations and the soda squads. Just, there was a real tender heart and openness to be used by God. And that was definitely, definitely an encouragement.
Dr. Jim: Well, if you do listen to the messages, I would encourage your listening to them in order. But I will say that Brother Pastor Matt Weber’s message was one of those messages that, the way he articulated it, I think is going to be a help to a lot of young people. And I would certainly encourage you making sure you listen to that message.
Bobby: Yeah, for sure. For sure. We’ll post all of the messages on the podcast stream. We’ll also have posts on the website eventually once those are all up and on the Youth Summit page. And so make sure you check those out. And we do have the dates, I believe, for next year. I believe, if I’m remembering off the top of my head, I’ll post a correction in the description if it’s wrong. I think it’s October 12th, 13th, and 14th, 2022. And so maybe you missed this year and you weren’t able to come. Try to mark off those dates for next year and plan to come with us.
There’s one young lady, actually. She’ll probably listen to this here. She listened from Japan during COVID and was all into everything. Remotely wanted to come, came, had an absolute blast. And I’m sure there are probably some that are listening.
Maybe you feel like it would be impossible for you to ever come to one of these. I just want to tell you, pray and the Lord might open the door and make it possible for you to come. And I know if you did, your heart would be blessed. You listen to the sermons, please. But there’s something about being here in the environment of all that’s happening that just can’t be replicated in an audio file or video file.
Dr. Jim: Well, and sometimes, even honestly, flying is not a bad option if you can find the right ticket. Start several months in advance and check some of the airlines, and depending on the airport you’re having to work with.
For instance, I was just literally two weeks away, and I was in the Washington, D.C., area, and I found a ticket from Dulles, which is in the area, for $129 to get here and for less than $100 to get back to a different airport. I think Ronald Reagan. But just to give you an example, that was two weeks before somebody could have come for about $200.
So, if you get your tickets a little bit before, you might be able to get a good price from your particular airport. And we would really encourage you to think about doing that. Maybe a little bit of forethought might give you an opportunity to come in.
Bobby: Yeah, well, it’s been—it’s been a great time, and the competitions have been excellent. Looking forward to that review video coming out hopefully soon, all of the video sessions, audio sessions online. Do you have any other observations you wanted to add about the week? Just some things that the Lord did.
Dr. Jim: It was a little bit… you know, I’ve done a lot of Special Forces, so I get the feel. The first day, I was trying to sense, of course, since there’s always a battle, you sense a battle, trying to sense, what is that? What’s the issue of the crowd? What’s the crowd need? Obviously, it’s individual needs.
And I really came to the conclusion there was just really not a resistance. It wasn’t like breaking the back of rebellion. It was, I think, young people who were hungry for victory, hungry for God to use them, hungry for the reality of God’s presence in their life. And young person, let me just tell you, if you’re hungry for the real deal, I tell you, that’s what this conference was all about.
Bobby: Absolutely. I mean, that’s the target demographic.
I doubt you’re listening to this if you really don’t want your life to make a difference. You listen to Thee Generation because, really, in your heart, in your heart of hearts, you want to be surrendered to Jesus. You want to depend upon His power to reach the world. And so I guess what we’re trying to say is, if that is your heart and if that’s why you listen, you would feel right at home at the Thee Generation Youth Summit.
Dr. Jim: I agree. I hope some of you can pray about that, as Brother Bosler mentioned. And we certainly are thrilled with what God’s doing in Thee Generation. And I’m hoping you’re listening to some of the specialized podcasts. We’re certainly excited about those and thrilled about it. So God bless you. And I’ll say the first part.Brother Bosler is going to say the second part.
Dr. Jim: But it’s total surrender, friends,
Bobby: and total dependence to reach the world with the gospel.
