Over 32,000 Teens Urged to Stop Dating World, Marry God
More than 32,000 teens were urged to forsake all their lovers and commit to God.
"Some of you guys have been playing around just sort of dating God, dating the world, dating God ..." Teen Mania Ministries founder Ron Luce told the thousands of teens at Detroit's Ford Field on Saturday. "Maybe you never stopped dating the world and committed to Christ."
The youth leader was preaching at the second rally of this year's BattleCry campaign, which has so far drawn over 54,000 teens in the West Coast and in the mid-states. BattleCry rallies are large-scale two-day stadium events gathering the young generation in a fight against pop culture and the loss of Bible-believing Christians.
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In a media- and sex-saturated culture, Luce says there's a culture war being waged for the souls of youths, and unless they do something to combat the negative messages targeting teens, the evangelicals will lose. So he and Teen Mania are out "banging the drum" as loud as they can until they win.
"We're fighting that outside influence," he said, according to the Detroit Free Press. "We're teaching teenagers to see through it. We're teaching them how the Bible can help them."
But he doesn't want teens to just give a quick prayer and say they believe in God. He wants to see a marriage commitment to God.
"If you really believe ... then commit," he told Detroit's young crowd. "It's not a cheap, sort of half-hazard [commitment] ...; it's like you're marrying God."
That means, giving up other lovers - including drugs, alcohol and sex before marriage - and taking up the cross.
"[Jesus] is saying I want you to love me so much you're not thinking about 'Oh, I can't do drugs, I can't drink, I can't have sex anymore until I'm married,'" said Luce. "He's [saying] when you come, you've got to think about it because you've got to forsake everything else; you've got to walk away from it; you've got to let it go; you've got to let that part of you die."
And when a person commits, it is not a religion thing, it's a God thing, said Luce as he warned them to first "think about it" before they make that commitment.
Thousands of teens, many in tears, kneeled at the foot of two illuminated crosses on the sides of the stage to commit themselves to Jesus Christ and walk away from their old lives.
BattleCry in Detroit was held Apr. 13-14 and its third and final 2007 stop is scheduled for mid-May at the Nissan Pavilion in Bristow, Va.
