[Benjamin John]

Hey all... just thought I post this here so you could find out a bit about the ministry I began last year. It is a very dynamic youth evangelism ministry, and if you want to get a group started on your school campus, let me know

Any feedback on this 'strategy' would be appreciated as well.
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Invincible gravity
A student-led revolution group
in partnership with Barnabas Ministries

The iG Plan
The iG Strategy equips students to establish student-initiated, student-led, Great Commission-oriented campus clubs under the guidelines of the Equal Access Act. The purpose of these club meetings is for accountability, outreach and follow-up!

Key Elements to the iG Strategy:
1. A multi-denominational team of youth ministers/workers
2. A defined campus ministry strategy

The Battle-field
The military analogy is a great way to illustrate the iG groups. No military is complete without each of these five components: Field Generals, Captains, a Lieutenant, Seargents, and Foot Soldiers.

The Field Generals
Serving as advisors and accountability leaders, Barnabas Ministries provides encouragement and exhortation while empowering students to be bold and authentic in their faith. They are also partnered with each iG group in order to help those individual groups accomplish their goals.

The foundation of the strategy is to have Barnabas available to encourage and educate the students as they implement the strategy. Barnabas meets regularly to hold one another accountable to the strategy and evaluate what God is doing on the campuses in their community.

Barnabas Ministries will stay in close touch with the administration of local school districts in order to ensure no rules are being broken.

The Captains
Another vital part of the strategy is a team of youth ministers/workers from evangelical churches who help train students in evangelism, provide Biblical counsel, and share from God?s word to the group.

There are two kinds of Captains. The Primary Captain(s) are local church youth ministers who are plugged in to the local team/network. The Primary Captain(s) take the responsibility of coaching the Student Leaders. The Primary Captain meets with them at least once every four weeks to assist them in planning for the upcoming outreach event(s) and train during Challenge week (read below).

The Assistant Captains can also be local church youth workers, as well as parents of the students or any adult fitting the requirements, who are plugged in to the local IG group. The Assistant Captains assist the Primary Captain in his responsibilities.

The Students
The iG Groups are student-led. In fact, the greatest influence on a teenager is another teenager. So it only makes sense to equip the students with the plan and "coach" them as they enter the "battlefield."

According to the George Gallup Poll, the top three influences on teens in 1960s were:
1. parents
2. teachers
3. spiritual leaders

The top three influences in the 1990s are:
1. friends
2. music/media
3. parents

(Teachers are now sixth and spiritual leaders are now 17th.)
So, the bottom line: students reach students!

The Lieutenant
The lieutenant is the key student leader of the group. The Lieutenant makes many of the decisions that affect the campus iG group, with help from the Captains and Field Generals. The Lieutenant is to stay in close contact with both Captains and Field Generals and be willing to make many sacrifices in order to stay committed to the group.

The Sergeants
The Sergeants are students holding leadership positions, such as prayer, Bible study, promotions, etc. They also have the opportunity to speak during Challenge week (see below) and/or select area youth pastors/workers to come in and train the group or lead them in Bible study.

The Foot Soldiers
The Foot Soldiers are the individual student members of each group. They are the ones who will be most visible at iG?s actual outreach events, as they work their assigned stations. During the planning sessions of each weekly meeting, they offer ideas along with everyone else.

The Battle Plan
The Battle Plan is a simple four-week cycle called the ACTS Revolution. The term "revolution" is used in this case because every four weeks the students complete the four-week cycle, which is one revolution. Hopefully, the ACTS Revolution will begin to lead to a righteous revolution! Here are the four weeks:

1. Accountability Week
This is a time during which students hold one another accountable for:
· what they learn though their local church and personal time with God
· for whom are they are praying
· a lifetime

2. Challenge Week
This is the club meeting that is focused on motivating students to be fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Area youth pastors, youth workers, parents, or even students themselves lead in a Bible Study.

3. The Throne Room week
This club meeting provides students with an opportunity to pray specifically for teachers, staff, and students at each school. After prayer, a time of worship in song is held and students have an opportunity to share testimony of what God is doing.

4. Saving On Sight (S.O.S) Week
During this meeting, the group will begin at the regular meeting spot. However, after a brief prayer meeting and possibly some ?motivational speaking? from a local youth pastor/worker, the group will go to a place where there are many people present and share the Gospel with someone. By doing so, students will break their comfort zones and have the opportunity to let God use them as He saves them on sight through the iG students.

After somebody accepts Christ during the SOS Week, the student(s) who led that person to the Lord are encouraged to stay in touch with him/her and invite him/her to their church.

After a student from the campus where the club meets has surrendered to Jesus during SOS Week ? or any week, the student who invited the new convert should involve the new believer into his or her accountability group and nurture the new believer. This would bring growth to iG, to local churches, to local youth groups, and best of all? to God?s kingdom.

Adapted in part from First Priority© Call 770.410.6341 or visit www.firstpriorityusa.com

[Jay42]

Sounds like a good organization.

Beware though - people wanting to criticize it will make fun of the military lingo.

You know how campus newspapers are always looking for a good story. They will get someone to say "You shouldn't call evangelism a 'battle plan' because it is supposed to be out of love."

It just seems like an easy target for short-sighted remarks.

[Benjamin John]

I'm on the newspaper staff, actually. So far the only remarks from the paper are news stories about the group and so on. Also, we don't run stories that criticize or harm students and/or the groups they are affiliated with. So God's certainly went ahead of us on that one!! He is so cool in how He works