Church Talk Transcript

You have all been so patient. After a few requests and over a month’s delay on my part here is the transcript of the talk I gave at OCCA in September.

So what is Silver Ring Thing? The simplest expaination is an abstinence program, but truth be told, I am not doing it justice with that definition. Silver Ring Thing is truly an evangelism movement to reach today’s youth by speaking through the most popular means of communication. We are a traveling production team that will do a show wherever we are invited, but we’re not on the road 9 months out of the year to sell rings or promote abstinence, we’re promoting Jesus and abstinence is the way we draw a crowd. Sexuality is Satan’s greatest weapon in the world today- you can see evidence of that everywhere. So why not take his greatest weapon and turn it against him? Some parents may not support sending their kids to a Jesus event, but they are all for sending their kids to an abstinence program. Likewise most kids don’t want to attend an abstinence or a Jesus event, but they like concerts and they like funny things and they are willing to come to Silver Ring Thing based on the entertainment value. As soon as kids enter the room they encounter high energy music, professional lighting, and fast paced video. Every show starts with a comedy skit and funny speakers. At least the first hour of the show is filled with comedy, movie clips, and audience participation to meet kids where they are and show them that this isn’t going to be like a high school health class where the boys go off to one room and talk and the girls to another. SRT is geared for the unchurched kids and we typically don’t talk about God until ¾ of the way through the program. By this point, we have established a relationship with the audience- hopefully they like us by now and they also trust us. One of our Travel Team members shares their testimony in a portion of the show we call “Starting Over.” Without a doubt at every show we get students who think it’s too late for them. They have already gone too far, they didn’t wait, and feel like our program is not for them- it’s too late. Every year we have a new person and a new story, but this talk is always about how God showed them grace and forgiveness when they had gone too far or messed up in their relationships. The final talk of the evening is the gospel. Like I said, by this point the relationship has been built and trust has been established. The Gospel ties the whole program together. I said earlier that abstinence is our vehicle and Jesus is our message, well Silver Ring Thing believes that abstinence is not possible without Christ at the center of your life. The pressures of this world are too much and unless you base this decision on the foundation of Christ, you won’t make it. Kids are then given a chance to pray the prayer of salvation and then everyone who would like to get a ring says the vow together. The vow is a covenant between the student and God saying they will wait for their future husband or wife. Then kids are dismissed to go pick up their rings. We are not a jewelry company. We don’t put undue emphasis on the ring, we make note that it doesn’t have any special powers, it’s not a magic ring, but it serves as a constant reminder of their husband or their wife. Every student that gets a ring also gets one of these Bibles. It’s a New Believers New Testament with Bible studies and reading plans designed by Silver Ring Thing to get students into the word, growing in their faith and growing in their commitment to their decision to wait. Each ring is inscribed with the reference 1 Thess 4:3-4 “God wants you to be holy so you should keep clear of all sexual sin. Then each of you will control your own body and live in holiness and honor.”

When I’m on the road, I stay with host families in nearly every town we do a show. In almost every home they ask me how I got involved with Silver Ring Thing. The answer is God’s will was being done in my life. In my junior year of college, I was applying to numerous internships most of them in New York City. I had applied to ESPN, Comedy Central, NBC, advertising firms in New York and Pittsburgh- I was thinking BIG. Now I have spoken here before about my decision to go in to ministry. It was the summer before my Freshmen year of college and was set to go to Grove City as a communication major, get a great internship at a place like ESPN or NBC, graduate with a job at one of those places already lined up, make lots of money, and by this time in my life I was already supposed to be driving 10 different sports cars. Then one fateful day shortly after a week of Vacation Bible School, Jen Ashby, who spoke here this summer, asked me if I had ever considered going into ministry. As Jen, Stacy, or I will tell you, I laughed. Me? Ministry? You have to be in ministry a LONG time if you want to drive 10 sports cars. I wanted money. I wanted it quick. Well, I went off to school as a communication major, but the “Have you ever considered going into ministry?” question echoed in my head constantly until I found myself at the door of the religion department to add a Christian Thought major. God’s will was being done in my life. Now back to the Silver Ring Thing story…I was applying for all these internships, summer was fast approaching, I wanted to work for a mainstream studio, but in the back of my mind and heart, I knew that I was supposed to be in ministry. I was reading the job postings on the career services website one day and saw an ad for Silver Ring Thing. I couldn’t believe what I was reading- a high tech ministry that proclaims the gospel of Christ to the youth of this nation and….they make their own videos?!?!?!?! It was perfect. I applied for the internship and moved to Pittsburgh about a month later. God’s will was being done in my life. Throughout my senior year I was applying to jobs all over the country again, passing out resumes like crazy, and still not getting any response. I emailed the Internship Director at Silver Ring Thing one afternoon in December. She told me that she would be praying for God to open the door for me to back at SRT, so I was just checking to see if she had made any progress on that. She replied and said she was just about to email me, because she would be on part time maternity leave that summer and they wanted to ask me back as the Internship Director. I accepted and a few months later, I moved to Pittsburgh. God’s will was being done in my life. At the end of the summer both Silver Ring Thing and I were trying to figure out what the next step was, we were both hoping for a full time position on staff, but that didn’t really pan out, but in my last scheduled week at SRT a position on the travel team opened up. By the time I officially accepted the offer I had already moved all of my stuff back home, so a few days later, I moved to Pittsburgh because God’s will was being done in my life. I spent the next 9 months on the road as the Live Event Video Director. At every show we have 2 projection screens and a mix of Silver Ring Thing produced videos, movie clips and slide presentations as well as 3 remote control cameras that provide a live feed. So it is my job at every show to assemble all of this equipment, control all 3 cameras, and mix the live feed with the prerecorded clips. In addition, I also spoke during school assemblies and some shows. We were on the road from August through May did 51 shows in 22 states and one in Canada. We drove through 42 states and spent over 600 hours on the bus. During last year’s tour season 23, 529 people attended an event, 11,876 put on rings, and 2,416 people commited their lives to Christ. The Kingdom of heaven is now over 2,000 members stronger because of the work God is doing through this ministry on the last tour alone. That was last season, the tour ended in May, I reapplied, was invited back in June, and a few weeks ago I moved back to Pittsburgh. And I have no doubt that God’s will is being done in my life. I have no idea what this year has in store, what my role will be or where God’s going to take us, but I know that his will is going to be done.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 says “God wants you to be holy so you should keep clear of all sexual sin. Then each of you will control your body and live in holiness and honor.” These verses make the need for Silver Ring Thing clear. We’re not out spouting what we believe is right or what one denomination claims, but it’s right here in the word of God. There can be no argument.

I hear all the time that this is message that the kids need to hear because things are harder than ever in this world. But if we really take a look at 1 Thessalonians, and the culture of the day, I think Paul’s original audience may have had it tougher than we think. The book starts “This letter is from Paul, Silas, and Timothy. It is written to the church in Thessalonica, you who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Throughout the first three chapters Paul explains himself to the Thessalonians and in doing so also tells us what his history is with them. In chapter 2 he tells us that before coming to Thessalonica, he was persecuted in Philippi. And he says they were then opposed in Thessalonica as well. Acts 17 tells the story of Paul and Silas starting this church. They win some converts, the Jewish leaders get mad, gather up a bunch of people start a riot and start harassing the new converts and those helping Paul. Verse 10 says that very night the church in Thessonica sent Paul on to the next town. What a way to start a church! He’s thrown in jail in Philippi, an earthquake comes and rattles the doors off, his next stop is Thessonica and within three weeks of being there he’s facing persecution again so this baby church gets him out of there before it gets really dangerous. Paul ends chapter 2 talking about he has wanted to come see them, but things just weren’t working out. Finally in the beginning of chapter 3 he couldn’t stand it anymore, he needed to know how they were so he sent Timothy to check on them. Based on the report Timothy gives, Paul writes chapters 4 and 5 full of practical advice to help the Thessalonians. The first area they were struggling was apparently sexually. Thessalonica was a Greek city and promiscuity was common in most Greek cities- even for the religious. This city and this time is not that different from our own- they had a very distorted view of sexuality. A writer of the day said, “We keep prostitutes for pleasure, mistrisess for the day to day needs of the body, we keep wives for the faithful guardianship of our homes.” This was the norm in the culture. These Christians were called to be different, to rise above the temptation. Some translations of 4:3 start, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.” To be sanctified means to be set a part, to be different. God calls us just has he called the new Christians in Thessalonica to rise above what was normal in their culture- to take a stand and stand out. If they didn’t there would be nothing different about them. They would be living exactly like the world. Verse 8 says that to not do this is “rejecting God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.” Because, God needs to be at the center of this lifestyle. Without faith it would be impossible to go against the entire culture. A person cannot do that by themselves, they couldn’t then and they can’t now, there needs to be something deeper. In Chapter 5 Paul reminds the Thessalonians how this faith has been made possible in verses 9 and 10: “For God decided to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. He died for us so that we can live with him forever whether we are dead or alive at the time of his return.” Paul reminds the church that they needed to be saved, they deserved wrath and not grace, but God chose to send his son to die for them and save them. Because of this saving grace they are called to live a better life.

I often struggle with determining the will of God in my life. I struggle with this in large areas such as where I should live or what career path I should take to much smaller things. Even before I accepted this invitation to speak today, I struggled a lot and went back and forth several times. I called my mom and told her to let me know if any of our bushes caught on fire and started talking to her. I’m always looking for something clear cut- a simple yes or no, do this don’t do that, go here don’t go there. God certainly doesn’t always work that way, but 1 Thessalonians gives us 4 specifics on God’s will. The first one we just talked about in 4:3-4. It’s God’s will that we avoid sexually immorality. That we set ourselves apart from the world and control our bodies. The next 3 are found in chapter 5 verses 16-18. “Always be joyful. Keep on praying. No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” Be joyful. Pray. Be thankful. Always. Even in the face of persecution or hardship or when you seem to be the only one taking the high road and not conforming to what the world says. The church in Thessalonica certainly didn’t have it any easier than we do, and quite possibly had it worse, but God makes his will clear to them. They are to a avoid sexual immorality and live lives of integrity in holiness and honor. They are to always be joyful. It’s God’s will that they pray. And they are to be thankful no matter what. God didn’t have to save them, he didn’t have to save any of us, but he chose to. That is reason enough to keep these commands.

My ministry deals specifically with teenagers and exposing them to the love and grace of God. While we don’t live in Thessalonica, America today is no Zion either.
i. 1 out of 11 teenagers attempt suicide each year
ii. 48% of high school seniors have been sexually active in the past 3 months
iii. 1 in 10 high school girls have reported being raped at some point in their lives
iv. 53% of teens believe Jesus committed sin (including 40% of born again teens)
v. 91% believes there is no absolute truth
This is a hurting generation that either doesn’t know what to believe, or is believing all of the lies the world is feeding them. What are we going to do about it? Please don’t leave it up to youth pastors or organizations like Silver Ring Thing, because we simply don’t have the manpower to support the demand that today’s culture presents. This is an election year. You have probably heard the same argument that I have for voting- your vote is your voice. If you choose not to vote, that is your decision, but later on down the road if you don’t like how things are being run you have no room to complain because you had your chance to be heard, but you sat idly by and let it slip away. It is the same with today’s youth. If you don’t want to get involved and support your youth group and children’s programs that’s your decision. Parents, if you want to let your kids figure things out for themselves, that your decision. But each one of you has a voice and can be heard. Unfortunately most of us sit back and think “I can’t believe she’s wearing that.” “I can’t believe he thinks that’s appropriate” but we do nothing about it. If we don’t do anything to stop it, we have no right to complain about it. This generation is hurting and is in need. They need to know there is absolute truth and there is True Love out there. If that wasn’t the case, there wouldn’t be over 100,000 students with silver rings on or 65,000 commitments to Christ since Silver Ring began.

I know that some of you have brought your kids to Silver Ring Thing. Many of you have supported this ministry financially and even more consistently pray for us. I could stand up here and thank you all day and it still would be far less than you deserve. You make this ministry possible and it’s because of God’s work through you that thousands of lives are changed each year. As a token of thanks we’re going to play a video in a minute that has written testimonies from kids whose lives have been changed at a Silver Ring Thing event. But first, let me leave you with these words from the end of 1 Thessalonians: “Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful. Dear brothers and sisters, pray for us. Greet all the brothers and sisters with Christian love. I command you in the name of the Lord to read this letter to all the brothers and sisters.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”