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Action 52 students plant seeds, share faith

By Lynn Dove
COCHRANE, AB—It started at Summer Youth Celebration (SYC) as youth were “activated” to share the gospel with their families and friends.

Cesar Parra, the guest speaker at SYC, challenged the young people to try to share the gospel once a week for fifty-two weeks. He said, “As youth, you will join with us to be activators of prayer, evangelism and discipleship in Canada and the world by aiming to proclaim the gospel 52 times a year. … This is the evangelistic vision of Action 52.”

Since then Cesar has been getting emails from youth who attended SYC telling him how many seeds they have thrown out after sharing gospel with others. As exciting as this was to hear, one common thread ran through many of the emails and Facebook postings Cesar received. Many youth were extremely intimidated about sharing their faith and although they had the desire to do so, they needed to learn how to share the gospel more effectively and without fear.

Responding to this request by the youth to be trained in evangelism, Cesar and Paul Johnson, CNBC Share Team leader, organized an Action 52 weekend retreat, held October 17 and 18 at the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary & College.

Three Alberta youth groups from Bow Valley Baptist, Cochrane, Richmond Hill Baptist, Calgary, and ROOTS (youth church of Truth Chinese Baptist, Calgary) attended the retreat which had 50 in attendance.

The Friday evening and Saturday workshops were designed to help the youth share their stories (testimonies) and then present the gospel in a clear, concise way using the Evangecubes that each one received at the retreat.

The highlight was when the youth were divided into groups and sent out to five different restaurants in Cochrane to share their faith with people they met there. The teens were given three questions they could ask as icebreakers for discussion: “What do you think is the secret to happiness? Do you think God has a plan for your life?” Using their Evangecube they would ask the question: “With this cube I can explain to you God’s plan for your life. May I share it with you in five minutes?”

Carmen and Laurie, two youth from Bow Valley, had opportunity to speak with three men who were sitting together at one table. They gleaned from their discussion that one of the men was a Christian who was having lunch with his two agnostic friends.

“I was sitting here for half an hour trying to talk about God with my friends,” he later said to me, “and those two girls came over and shared the gospel so well and so boldly … they were an answer to prayer!”

Other youth had similar stories. Francisco, from Richmond Hill, laughed when he shared his experience: “I asked one man what he thought the secret to happiness was and he said, ‘Not fighting with my wife!’” Then that man went on to listen attentively while Francisco shared the gospel with him.

Tim, a youth from ROOTS, had opportunity to lead two people to Christ after sharing the gospel using his Evangecube while they were standing in line at a fast food restaurant.

Cydney, overcome with emotion, wept after a man rejected her attempt to speak with him, but she wept with joy when she witnessed her friend, Kimberly, lead a friend to Christ minutes later. “One minute it was so disappointing, when that man said he was an atheist,” Cydney said. “And then we prayed that God would continue to give us courage and strength and the next minute we planted a seed! God is faithful.”