Harvest Megachurch Youth Pastors: Millennials Actually Love the Church if It's Real
"We have been challenging to bring their nonbelieving friends so they are building these relationships and they are utilizing this event as an opportunity, really the capstone for this gospel presentation. So we're setting them up for success. And so I do think that there are a lot of nonbelievers that come and so they do hear the gospel," he continued.
CP asked Collins what he sees the Holy Spirit doing among the youth of today and the most encouraging signs he is seeing.
"What I see with the millennial generation is, the kids who are believers, they love the church," he said, noting that they are not impressed with light shows theatrics but with real, authentic discipleship. The youth he observes are deliberately getting into the Word and sincere in their faith.
Such a value for discipleship is central to Harvest Crusades operations; the evangelistic outreach is coupled with extensive follow-up, and 250 churches in Southern California cooperated to facilitate newcomers to the faith.
"I mean you would have to like fall off the map in a different country to not get followed up on here," Powell said. Their teams gather the information about each new commitment registered and connect people to churches in their neighborhood.
"You cannot seep through the cracks here," he continued,"if you commit your life to Christ, if you make that profession of faith, you will have multiple contacts in your life making sure that what you made was not just a said faith but a saving faith."
At the conclusion of the interview, Powell noted that "there was a man who said, if you control the youth you control the future."
That man was Adolf Hitler.
"I think for the cause of Christ that if we can get these youth to realize that the Lord has placed them where they are for such a time as this, that if they can rise to that occasion, if they could see that the Lord wants to use them, I think we can control the future."
"So for what [Hitler] had for illegitimate plans I think we can redeem that and make it all the better for the cause of Christ," he concluded.