Many of you might have been able to attend the Global Leadership Summit at one of the many satellite sites and heard a whole host of amazing speakers. If you happened to stay through the end, you heard Gary Haugen, the Founder and CEO of the International Justice Mission. His urgent call to courage and justice are words that fit with your work with students across the country as well.
If you did not hear his message, here is a brief summery and his call to action.
- All great leadership flows first from great dreams.
- But every day, fear goes to work trying to destroy the dreams. If you want your leadership dream to survive out there: You must arrange your life so that, on a routine basis, you can find that stillness of the interior to ask: What am I anxious about? In this difficult situation, what am I really afraid of?
- A second suggestion for keeping your dream alive out there. Switch from playing defense to playing offense. No great dream of love has ever, ever been built on a fear of what might go wrong – but only on the great and abundant hope of what might go right. So what does this mean for us as leaders? To switch from playing defense to playing offense is to accept God's invitation to charge the darkness – to affirmatively advance into what is broken, hurting and wrong in the world – and bring his healing, justice, and redemption.
- Finally, let me say this, successful leaders of great dreams do one more, decisive thing. They forge a community of courage around them. Lone rangers do not make great dreams come true – ever! Jesus gathered around himself a band of men and women and forged a community of courage. He poured into them, invested in them, and loved them – for years. And then, on his last night with them – he calls them to courage. He commanded them: "Do not be afraid."
At IJM, our dream is to end modern day slavery and sex trafficking. With over 45 million slaves in our world today, we can't do it without God's help through the church. And one way your church and youth group can join this dream is to participate in Freedom Sunday. Freedom Sunday is a tangible opportunity for your students to play offense against the evils of human trafficking and slavery. It all takes place on September 24, 2017 (or at another Sunday that fits better for you). Here is a link to sign up and receive resources for the whole church, youth groups and children too.
We really are better together… #noLoneRangers.
Brian Cress
International Justice Mission
Director of Denomination and Youth Mobilization
(A former youth pastor and member of the National Network of Youth Ministry since 1985)