250 Young People Make Decisions to Follow Jesus at Wednesday Momentum

After hearing from Clayton King, founder and president of Crossroads Worldwide/Clayton King Ministries, over 250 young people said “yes” to following Jesus during the Momentum Youth Conference Wednesday morning session.

“This is a holy moment,” said King as students poured into the aisles and down to the front, publicly showing their commitment to follow Jesus. “God is the only one who can save you. He’s already done the work on the cross — and now he offers you forgiveness.”

“If you want to be relentless, it starts with a decision,” he stressed. “But we are not pure because we tried hard — we were pure because Jesus made us pure.”

After the session, the young people gathered into small groups with their youth leaders to be prayed over and to learn the practical next steps to their Christian walk.

The rest of the day was filled with fun activities and games, Power Trax sessions led by student leaders from churches and organizations all over the country, and an evening Concert of Prayer held at the Indiana Wesleyan outdoor track. Students gathered with their youth groups as they were led in prayer through scripture passages and challenges to pray for families, churches, unsaved friends, personal repentance, and boldness to share the gospel. Those congregated stood, knelt, raised their hands towards the surrounding cities, and gathered in groups of two or three like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, practicing prayer as a daily part of life involving body, heart and soul bent in attitudes of worship.

The evening session was packed with Christ-centered content as well, as students heard from Randy Smith, founder of Great Commission Bible Institute, and Keith Minier, lead pastor at Grace Fellowship in Pickerington, Ohio.

Smith stressed that “the battle is spiritual, and Jesus will set things right someday.”

Minier spoke about God’s will — drawing from Daniel 1:8, drawing attention to Daniel’s willful decision “not to defile himself with the king’s food.”

“Every decision you make to honor God or not honor God is of enormous significance,” he reminded the audience. “Small ‘yeses’ lead to big ‘yeses.’ You need to decide before you walk into a situation — and when decision time comes, you already know the answer.”

Amidst the excitement and emotional highs of the day, Minier reminded students of the continued commitment to come for anyone claiming to follow Christ:

“[A vessel for Christ] needs to be empty. It needs to be available. It’s one thing to say yes — but my dream for you is that when you go home and the fanfare has ended, you say in the quietness, ‘I will fill my [time on earth] with my Creator! Here is my life. Use me.”

Minier ended his preaching with a challenge for each student to ponder how they were going to take the next step to “fill my mark with my Maker,” and publicly post their decision on social media. Read through these decisions by searching the #todayidecided hashtag on Twitter and Instagram.

This year’s Momentum Youth Conference, sponsored by CE National, is being held July 14-18 at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana. Speakers include Kondo Simfukwe, David Nasser, Clayton King, Jeff Bogue, Sean McDowell, Keith Minier, Jackie Hill Perry, and Naghmeh Abedini. These individuals will speak to Momentum theme, Relentless. Click here to learn more about the speakers. Watch this site, as well as the GraceConnect Twitter (@graceconnectus), Facebook, and  Instagram (@graceconnect) feeds for more updates.