Today is the day.
About 10 years ago we put a pen to paper and came up with a goal at Dare 2 Share to
Train 1,000,000 Teenagers To Share Their Faith By June 30, 2010″
At the time the goal seemed right. It was prayed over and planned for. Strategies began to form and programs were developed. The last decade has been a whirlwind of pushing toward that one bullseye. Not only was it posted on every brochure and strategic plan, it was written on my heart.
So, here we are. June 30, 2010. Have we trained 1.000.000 teenagers to share their faith? Not quite. My best guess is that we are about a couple hundred thousand short. This reality started my day with a sober and bittersweet, somewhat nostalgic tone. I caught myself reflecting on the past and remembering the sweat, tears, and blessings. But as the day is coming to a close, I really feel thankful.
- I am thankful for the opportunity to even have a goal like this laid on my heart. My prayer life is better for it.
- I am thankful for the hundreds of thousands that were trained and I pray that they have trained hundreds of thousands of others that only God knows about.
- I am thankful for the new vision goal of mobilizing teenagers to make disciples who make disciples. It is more complete and holistic and reflects the wonderful principle of multiplication.
- I am thankful for those who have walked beside me through the journey. They have touched many a teenager’s lives and I can only hope I am present to see them get their rewards in heaven!
- I am thankful that God’s timing is not mine. “Lest any man should boast.” I am not surprised now when He surprises me. What a great God we serve!
I wonder what the next 10 years will hold?
Leading & Learning 
July 1, 2010 at 4:04 pm
I don’t know if this is something you can talk about publicly or not, but I’m curious: what things contributed to D2S not meeting this goal? It’s a great goal and I know you guys pursued it wholeheartedly, so obviously something(s) outside your control prevented D2S from meeting it. Just curious what that was because I’m sure I could learn from it.
August 14, 2010 at 11:48 pm
sorry for the delay Tim. Here is MY opinion about why we didn’t hit the goal… Even with the D2S multiplication philosophy of teens training teens, we chose a goal that was based on how many we trained. The number was a “nice, round number” and with some basic math it seemed achievable by 2010 (which at the time was far, far away). In retrospect I have two major things I have learned about setting goals through this experience: 1) make sure the goal is based on an output that really makes sense and is easily tracked. The 1M number of teens trained may not have been the best metric. 2) Pray, pray, pray! Make sure that the goal is really soaked and then, and only then, go for it!