It started nine years ago in St. Louis at North County Community Church with 241 teenagers. The next year it grew to 600 at 1st Baptist Church of St. Charles. We doubled the next year and then again the next year after that. Pretty soon we had to move out of churches completely and move to regular event venues. Year after year the conferences kept growing and growing through hard work, prayer and duct tape (it fixes everything!)
And now here we are. It’s hard to believe that somewhere around 9,000 teenagers will be waiting for us at The Scotttrade Center (formerly Saavis Center) in downtown St. Louis. This huge arena that is used to screaming professional hockey fans had better gird itself up and prepare for the loud crowds of Dare 2 Share. These teens won’t be buying any beer at your concession stands (or had better not be anyway!) but they will be full of the Spirit and teen adrenalin…and did I mention that they will be loud?
Thank you Lord and thank all of you who have been attending Dare 2 Share for so many years in St Louis!
I am humbled and grateful. Not because of the big numbers. But because each of those 9,000 or so teens represents a potential changed life.
Why am I so thankful? Because each one of the teenagers who will be there this weekend carries huge potential in them and with them as they yield to the Holy Spirit. Dr. John Maxwell says that even the shyest of people will influence ten thousand others over the course of their lifetime.
Do the math on that: 9,000 teens X 10,000 people = 90 million people potentially being impacted by these teens over the course of their lifetimes.
Pray with me that God uses the conference this weekend to energize and equip these teenagers to make a powerful difference in their friends’ lives, their campuses and communities. Pray that the impact of this training weekend ripples out all across the nation.
The arch in St. Louis has been nicknamed “The Gateway to the West”. May it be the gospel gateway to the north, south, east and west as these 9,000 or so teens go far and wide and high and low with the good news of Jesus ringing forth from their lives and their lips!
