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Verse:Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. —1 Timothy 4:12
Many great leaders of the world have recognized the value and potentiality of shaping the minds of the new generations.
Some have done it for a good cause, and others, for a bad one, as in the case of Adolf Hitler and his Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth).
On September 14, 1935, he told a group of fifty-four thousand boys and girls gathered in Nuremberg, “You are the future of the Nation, the future of the German Reich!”26 But already in his book Mein Kampf (published originally in German in 1925), Hitler stated, “Youth furnishes the building material and the plans for the future.” No wonder that by 1936, 97 percent of all public-school teachers in Germany belonged to the National Socialist Teachers League. In contrast, many Christian youth organizations have inspired new generations to live biblical values and fulfill the gospel mission.
Some of the most influential ones are the Young Men’s Christian Association (better known as the YMCA), founded in 1844 in London for the healthy development of “body, mind, and spirit,” and the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Mission, organized in 1886 to recruit college and university students in the United States for missionary service abroad. For many years, the Missionary Volunteer Society of the Seventh-day Adventist Church was driven by the motto, “The Advent message to all the world in this generation.” In December 1999, the United Nations General Assembly voted August 12 as International Youth Day. This is part of the United Nations’ strategy “to increase the quality and quantity of opportunities available to young people for full, effective, and constructive participation in society.” What a blessing it would be if Adventist youth had similar opportunities in their local churches! Ellen White declared, “With such an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained, might furnish, how soon the message of a crucified, risen, and soon-coming Saviour might be carried to the whole world!” Every Adventist congregation should be a missionary training school for the next generation.
What has your church done to make this a reality?