November-December 2006 – Ron Luce and his wife began ministering to America’s youth 20 years ago. Luce is founder and president of Teen Mania, a high-profile, high-impact ministry for teens, parents and youth advocates. Ron talked with AFA Journal editor Randall Murphree earlier this fall.

AFA Journal: Give us a little background on your own teenage years.
Ron Luce: At 15, I ran away from my mom to find my dad. I lived with my dad in total rebellion – drugs and drinking and all that for a year. And then a friend of mine invited me to church. And this was a church where people passionately loved the Lord.

I thought, “I don’t know what these people have, but I want some of this.” I heard the preacher preach. It made sense to me, and I totally committed my life to the Lord.

It was the summer before my senior year in high school, and I went back to my school and started trying to tell all my friends about God. And essentially, ever since, I’ve been trying to tell teenagers about the Lord in a way that makes sense to them.

AFAJ: How did you sense a call and conceive a vision for Teen Mania?
RL: After I graduated college, I was just really seeking the Lord – “Lord, what do you want me to do?” I had a real heart for missions overseas.

The Lord spoke to my heart to raise up an army of young people who will give their life away for the cause of missions around the world and reaching our generation. When my wife and I started this – this is our 20th anniversary – it was just us and a little car calling these little churches in America, saying, “Hey, can we do a youth rally for your church and your kids?” Then we’d go there and 10 or 20 kids would show up. We’d take an offering from those kids, and then we’d go on to the next place.

AFAJ: What are some of the ministry components? 
RL: Acquire the Fire and Battle Cry stadium events are all about putting the Gospel in the language of teens, [teaching them] how to live for Christ passionately and how to make a difference for the rest of their lives. At the larger events, we’ll have 30, 40 or 50 thousand kids come. It’s amazing to stand in the middle of a stadium of kids totally worshiping God

If we’re going to think about how we can really serve teenagers in America, I’d like to focus on the state of teenage America, what’s happening with teenagers now.

There are four areas that are probably the most alarming to God-fearing Christians. Number one is that at the present rate of evangelism, only four percent of these young people will be Bible-believing, evangelical Christians. Now if you absorb and understand what that means, we can be looking like post-Christian Europe in a matter of just a few years, where all the horrible, heinous things that are legal there are allowed to become part of our culture.

We have five years to turn it around. In five years, most of these kids will be in their 20s and most people come to Christ before they’re 20. We all have to engage every church, every parent, every layperson who loves God. If we’re going to preserve the Judeo-Christian foundation that made us great, we have got to get involved.

AFAJ: How can this be accomplished?
RL: We need a 100,000 churches that will double their youth group, double and disciple, for the next five years. If we do that, we’ll be discipling 32 million kids in five years. We can do this. Every person reading this can have a part in engaging their church, and be one of those 100,000.

Second is the bombardment of [our teens by] the media. I know that AFA is familiar with all this, but the media slips by even godly parents, whether it’s through the Internet, through satellite TV, through podcasts. Josh McDowell says [today’s teens] are the first generation to be more influenced from outside the home than from inside the home. The average kid spends 35 to 55 hours a week between the Internet and TV. That’s more than a full-time job. You know, you’ve got video games that teach you how to plan murders and solicit prostitutes.

Third is the sexualization of our culture. Even the person that’s far from God could notice that there’s more sexual stuff in our culture than there used to be, whether that’s the regular family hour viewing of television or MTV with its 3,000 softcore porn images a week.

Data shows that the more kids watch this, the more likely they are to do it – to be involved sexually. The Rand Corporation says they’re twice as likely to have sex if they’re watching this sexualized programming. The media don’t really care about our kids. All they care about is the money. 

Fourth, we’ve got pornography. We know it’s bad, but I don’t think we understand how bad it is. [We need to] realize that 12- to 17-year-olds are the biggest viewers of pornography online, it’s not the dirty old men. They’re going after our babies. There’s all kind of data in our book Battle Cry for a Generation – what it does to a kid’s mind, what it does to their future, what it might do to their future marriage because they’ve had thousands and thousands of images flash across their minds. It’s a very real battle that we’re in.

AFAJ: Let’s say I’m sitting in the pew in my church, and I want to do something but don’t know what. What do I do?
RL: Phase one is to start a Battle Cry coalition in your church and your community so that the whole church becomes like a hospital for a broken-hearted generation. Get some friends together in your home and begin to go through some of the Battle Cry materials. We’ve got a DVD curriculum, it’s very easy. 

It has all kinds of stories of what you can do if you’re a grandparent, a businessman, a parent. Either get church members or people from other churches involved in a six-week small group study. 

Next, we need to educate our youth pastor and the leadership team around him to know how to build the thriving youth ministry that doubles and disciples every year. We’ve got all kinds of practical materials. Even guys with no budget, no training – even volunteer youth pastors –  can do it. Thousands of churches are already growing like crazy, We just need  100,000. This is just normal grassroots America going, “What can I do? Well, I can rescue the kids in my town.”

What we do is we teach them to love the Bible so much that they can see through the lies that have been shoved down their throats through the media. If we don’t go after them, MTV will go after them. Let it not be said that they want these kids more than we do. For the sake of a buck, they want  them more than we do for the sake of their souls. 

Maybe somebody that’s reading this doesn’t feel like they can relate to teens. They don’t have piercings, they don’t have tattoos, they’re not cool. That’s all right. Can you love? Can you care? Can you bake brownies? Can you do something?

I would encourage everybody – if you’re involved in men’s ministry at your church, start thinking how you can focus on the young men in your community; women’s ministry, focus on young women in your community.

AFAJ: Any parting thoughts?
RL: One day, history will be written about us, the Body of Christ, asking, “Who were those people when America lost its foundation, when we ended up with only 4% of our teens believing the Bible and started looking like post-Christian Europe?” And they’re going to write about us.

Or they’re going to write about us and say, “Who were those people who, when the train almost ran off the track and when we almost lost our foundation, they rose like a mighty army and took back this generation?”

Either way, they’re going to be writing about us. Let’s seize the moment we have.  

Pray, work
Katherine Montague, 17, traveled with Teen Mania’s Global Expedition team to Costa Rica during a six-week mission trip last summer. It had a major impact on her life.

The teenagers planted trees for churches and schools, and performed various services for people – everything from sweeping patios to repairing leaky faucets. More importantly, they led evangelistic and worship services in which they shared testimonies and the plan of salvation. Finally, they looked for every opportunity to introduce Jesus into conversations. 

“We tried to teach and demonstrate to the people that faith is not just about church, it’s about how you live your life for Christ,” Katherine said. “And I learned a lot more about living out my faith in daily life.”

The Saltillo (Mississippi) High School senior hopes to attend Honor Academy, a one-year discipleship program between high school and college. This year, Honor Academy has about 350 students on the Teen Mania campus in Garden Valley, Texas.