NEWS
MINISTRY
Proud warriors from another era gathered in Chicago to celebrate their worldwide movement.
Last month’s Youth for Christ International (YFCI) Celebration of Hope reunion featured plenty of gray hair and bulging waistlines. But a common concern flavored the exuberance and nostalgia of the four-day event: passing the fervor of one of this century’s most dynamic youth movements to a new generation of Christian leaders.
Delegates came from 47 states and 37 countries—whole contingents from such places as South Korea, India, Africa, and Australia, as well as from the Caribbean and the Americas.
Officially, nearly 800 were registered at the hotel where most sessions took place, though at times attendance there surged to 1,100. And there were easily as many stories as individuals at the gathering. “Everywhere I go I see the product of Youth for Christ,” said Ted Engstrom, president emeritus of World Vision and a former YFCI president.
A Friday night dinner addressed by founding president Torrey Johnson drew 1,500, and Billy Graham, YFC’s first full-time staff member, spoke at an “old-fashioned” Saturday-night rally at Chicago’s Moody Church. The rally was a bath in nostalgia: Cliff Barrows led a popular World War II chorus, “God Bless Our Boys,” Merrill Dunlop played the organ, George Beverly Shea sang “I’d Rather Have Jesus,” the choir rendered popular rally songs of the forties and fifties, and musicians Jan Sanborn, Kurt Kaiser, Hilding Halverson, Helen McAlarney Barth, and Bill Pearce and Dick Anthony all participated as well.
Why Yfc Worked
The desire to “pass the torch” to a new generation often included conjecture on the reasons for YFC’s success. Frequently, prayer was mentioned. According to Johnson, “We understood that prayer is the way God works, so we tried to work according to God’s formula.”
A second factor often acknowledged was the First Congress on World Evangelism, held in Beatenberg, Switzerland, in 1948, the place many American Christians received an international vision. In fact, the organizations born of the vision initially inspired at the Beatenberg congress comprise a long list of well-known, far-reaching ministries—World Vision, Overseas Crusades, Greater Europe Mission, International Students, TransWorld Radio, and Gospel Films, to name a few.
But ultimately, credit for YFC’s success went to God. As founding president Torrey Johnson put it, “You can’t define the dynamic behind Youth for Christ in human terms. It was God, you see. We were like the Los Angeles Dodgers: We had no right to win, but we did! We didn’t know that we couldn’t win; we didn’t know it wasn’t possible. It never occurred to us. We were swept along on the tide, and the tide was God.”
An Urgent Time
That tide began to swell in 1945, when rallies were already going strong in several major U.S. cities. Recognizing the advantages of a unified effort, 42 delegates met at Winona Lake, Indiana, for a founding convention and elected Johnson president. Pastor of Midwest Bible Church in Chicago at the time, he moved quickly to solidify the fledgling movement, opening an office, and hiring another young pastor, Billy Graham, as a YFC evangelist and spokesman. Graham criss-crossed the country in meetings, while Johnson coordinated details and traveled extensively himself.
Because most YFC leaders were unabashedly unsophisticated and lacking in broad knowledge of the world they lived in, many of the early years are recalled with a chuckle. Graham remembers being billed on programs with an infamous “talking horse.” Johnson remembers sending Graham on a preaching mission to Canada before either man understood the geography of a country whose land area is greater than that of the 48 contiguous United States. As Johnson recalled, a frustrated Graham soon phoned him, asking if he had ever been to Canada. “No,” said Johnson, whereupon Graham informed him he had cancelled half the meetings since “even the Lord himself couldn’t keep these dates.”
By the time of the Beatenberg congress, YFC had a global vision. Graham and Johnson led the first team to England. Later, Graham returned to Britain, while Johnson went to Berlin, and other teams fanned out across Europe and the Far East. And a world was beginning to take notice. William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper chain regularly reported on YFC activities, and a Christian Hearst reporter, Wesley Hartzell, was sent with the first team Graham and Johnson took to England.
An All-Pervasive Movement
It is virtually impossible to scratch the surface of any evangelical parachurch ministry today without finding staff personnel whose roots are imbedded in the YFC movement. Jay Kesler, for example, president of Taylor University and himself a former YFC president, was converted in a high school club. Warren Wiersbe, who now heads the “Back to the Bible” broadcast ministry, came to Christ at a rally addressed by Graham. And Gregorio Tingson, one of 48 commissioners called by President Corazón Aquino to rewrite the Philippine constitution, began his ministry of evangelism with Youth for Christ.
There were, however, some faces missing at the reunion. YFC has had its share of disaffected staff members over the years, many of whom still nurse bitter memories of bad management decisions and soured personal relationships. Several well-known figures were conspicuous by their absence.
A Two-Way Message
As former leaders sought ways to communicate something of the dynamism of the early days to a younger generation, current YFC leaders tried to explain what the organization is doing today.
Jim Groen, international president of Youth for Christ, described programs being conducted under the aegis of YFC in virtually every corner of the world.
• In Holland, YFC has 147 coffee houses where young people gather on the weekends.
• In Germany, there are Teen Mobiles: double-decker buses with a coffee bar and seats downstairs, and a counseling room on the upper deck. Buses like these are also used in Spain and Austria and in other parts of Europe.
• In Great Britain, a conference called Spring Harvest, sponsored by Buzz magazine and the Evangelical Alliance, is drawing over 60,000 young people annually for a week of evangelism, discipleship, and missions.
• In Indonesia, a Muslim country, the constitution requires religion to be taught in the schools. Because of the success of a pilot program, the head of the schools for Djakarta—1,000 middle schools and high schools—has asked YFC to teach a Christian class in every high school in the city, and will pay each teacher a stipend for transportation.
• In Africa, rallies are still popular, and YFC has recently been started in Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta). There were 5,000 people at the first rally one year ago. A second rally last February drew 12,000, with about 10 percent of the audience responding for salvation at both meetings. A training center is now being built on four acres given by the government.
Dick Wynn, president of YFC-USA, described the American culture as a deteriorating society. And as it deteriorates, he said, needs appear earlier in terms of age groups. For that reason, YFC today is working in junior high and middle schools through a relatively new junior varsity club program. Youth guidance programs reaching delinquents are increasing; in fact, only YFC ministers inside juvenile detention centers, though there are more than 300 organizations working within the adult prison system.
A New Vision?
Despite the reminiscing and optimism, concern for the future was apparent. The announcement of formation of the Youth for Christ Foundation, a new entity aimed at encouraging contributions to finance evangelism and discipleship programs across the U.S. and in over 100 countries, addresses a major YFC shortcoming. Beleaguered by financial shortages for years, the organization hopes the foundation will provide means for keeping the vision for youth alive. Businessman Jack Sonneveldt, long-time YFC activist in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has been named president of the Colorado-based fund.
And while many things have changed in the 40-plus years since the movement burst on the scene, some things are essentially the same. Today’s strategy, says Wynn, is to mobilize the Christian community to reach youth wherever they are found, and by all possible means.
Whether this will be done with the fervor and effectiveness of the past remains to be seen.
By Carol R. Thiessen.
