“For I know what I have planned for you,” says the Lord. “I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope” (Jeremiah 29:11, NETBible).

Today, young people feel overwhelming pain. They believe that their only hope is to find an escape. Many struggle in those turbulent adolescent years trying to figure out where faith fits into everyday life. However, God has a successful future for each young person, but it starts with His thoughts and plans. As the church, our desire is to see young people fascinated with God. We want to see them develop relationships with Him – this is why we host Firestarters youth conference.

Firestarters is an annual five-day youth conference during spring break in Chilliwack, BC. It is geared for youth aged 12 to 19. Our vision is four-fold: to bring young people together to encounter God, to encourage and equip them to live godly lives, to light a fire of passion for Jesus Christ within their hearts, and to commission them to spread the fire everywhere they go.

My parents, Gary and Patti Victor, pastors of Chilliwack Native Pentecostal Church, started Firestarters youth conference in 1998. The church was only two years old, and they had no youth when God gave them a vision and plan for Firestarters. In 2002, Melanie and I joined the pastoral team and have been involved with Firestarters ever since. I have been involved with preaching, teaching and multimedia, while Melanie has served as the teaching, worship team and activities coordinator. Gary and Patti have continued to be involved with the preaching, teaching and testimonies.

Over the past 12 years, we’ve seen a diverse group of young people in attendance from all over BC. Aboriginal youth who live on reserve and off reserve have come – young people who have grown up in church, along with others who only attend special church events. For some, this has been their first encounter with God.

The attendance numbers have not been outstanding, but God’s presence and touch is always amazing. Young people have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Young people have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Young people are being reconciled with one another. Young people are hearing God’s voice. Young people are being called and released into ministry.

Sometimes youth come to Firestarters and then get lonely for home and their familiar surroundings, but there is no denying that God has a purpose and desire to touch each youth who comes. One girl saw a recording of her two older brothers crying and hugging their enemies at a Firestarters conference several years earlier. She felt compelled to come and find out what it was that had softened the hearts of these tough young men. God touched her life at Firestarters as well, and He is continuing to radically transform her.

The morning workshops focus on biblical foundations and answering tough questions. In the past few years we’ve taught on topics like: how to hear God’s voice, spiritual warfare, making wise choices, biblical worldview, emotional balance and healthy relationships. The afternoons are filled with group activities, such as sports and swimming at the wave pool. The evening rallies include lots of energetic worship, testimonies, and preaching from the Word of God. We encourage teens to come with a youth group, so that Firestarters can fit into their discipleship program.

One afternoon, instead of sports and activities, we do a service project. We’ve had young people volunteer at a Christian thrift store, hand out free hot chocolate in town, and cook a meal for the needy. However, the most popular service project is ministering at a seniors’ home. Throughout the week, crafts are available to make as gifts to give to the elders, which is a great opening for interaction together. Through these service projects, eyes and hearts are opened. One young man shared how his eyes were opened to see people rather than the stereotypes.

On the last night of Firestarters, the youth are commissioned and released to spread the fire and go light their world for Jesus Christ. We pray for transformation in each community represented there. Throughout the year, we try to stay in touch with the youth who come and encourage them in the things that God has called them to do – to make a difference in their homes, schools and communities.

This is our next generation theology. The Holy Spirit does not grow with one’s maturity and development. Children and young people do not have a junior Holy Spirit. They receive the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

Our hope for the next generation is that it will be a brave generation. We pray that young people will not be afraid and consumed with what everyone else is going to think. Brave people will deal with the obstacles in their lives. Brave people will trust God to heal their brokenness and find their value in being a child of the King. Brave people will get compassionately involved in God’s kingdom. Brave people will commit themselves to the truth of God’s Word. God is looking for a generation that is going to rise up and be brave.

In 2009, we opened the invitation for non-Aboriginal youth to attend Firestarters. As Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal youth connect, there is opportunity to learn from one another and grow together. In Christ we are all reconciled as one body.

Life is a series of choices. What we choose opens the door to reality. So what’s happening in our life today is a result of choices made. Reality isn’t based on wishful thinking or wanting or hoping. Reality is based on choices made.

Bad things will happen to us. People will hurt us – intentional or not. People will die unjustly – accidents, violence, catastrophe, disease. But we still have a responsibility; we still have a choice in how we are going to respond. Are we living a life of cause and effect? If that’s the case, we’re just where Satan wants us to be. Because if he can affect your thinking and emotions by planting some words into your life, then he can move you away from God’s will for your life.

We need to stop looking at what’s happening and saying, “Well, it must be the Lord’s will.” Life will be hard. People will do stupid things, including us. But its God’s perfect will to work things together for good. What was meant to harm you or kill you, God can miraculously change it for good. We need to stop tolerating Satan tearing up our lives. Rise up in your authority in Jesus and make quality decisions – choices surrounded by boundaries.

Every decision we make is going to be based on the knowledge that we’ve obtained. If your knowledge is limited, your success is going to be limited. Where are you getting your information? Where is your wisdom coming from? Has God’s Word, the Bible, become the final and ultimate authority in your life? Foolish decisions will cost you. Every decision has to be well informed. Casual living leads to casualties.

It has been your choices that got you where you are today. But you can change your direction in life today by changing your source of knowledge. Don’t rely on your own knowledge. Trust the wisdom of the Lord. God has an expected end for your life, but it starts with his thoughts (Jeremiah 29:11).

Words will determine your thinking. Your thinking will determine your emotions. Your emotions will determine you decisions. Your decisions will determine your actions. Your actions will determine your habits. Your habits will determine your character. Your character will take you to your destination.

Words

What have I been hearing? What have I been listening to? What do I surround myself with everyday? Words that are planted in your heart – either negative or positive – will produce a harvest – either negative or positive. Be careful of who you let speak into your life. You might end up looking just like them. Why is the Word of God so important? First Peter 1:23 says that the Bible is the incorruptible seed. The seed will produce every time, never fails. What does God have to say about what you are doing right now?

Thoughts

What am I hearing? What am I hanging around? Who’s framing my thinking? The way you think today is based on the words that were spoken to you growing up – words by parents, siblings, relatives, teachers. People around you frame your thinking by the words that you hear. If you spend all your life listening to the words of the devil, then you are going to think in line with those words that you heard. If you spend your life listening to the Word of God, then the Word of God will frame the way you think. Choose what words you are going to hang around. You got to pay attention to what you are hanging around, to what you are hearing.

Emotions

Thinking that lines up with the Word of God will produce feelings and emotions that line up with the Word of God. But if you have negative words, those negative words will produce negative thinking. Negative thinking will produce negative feelings and emotions. Emotions are feelings on the inside caused by pain or pleasure designed to move you in a direction. How we deal with our emotions will determine whether we experience the blessing or the curse in our lives. Take charge over your negative emotions. Take charge over depression. Take charge over inferiority, over insecurity. Or any of those emotions that try to attack you. Jesus went through the same emotional attack that you and I go through; the same heaviness and depression that you and I have experienced. Don’t know how to change the way you feel? You are going to have to hang around words that is going to change your thinking so that it’s going to change the way you feel.

Decisions

Your life is the sum total of the decisions that you make – who you are, where you are, and what’s happening in your life. So accept your responsibility – you make decisions for your life. It takes a quality decision. A decision of quality is one that you are not afraid to put your life on the line for, one you are not afraid to sign your name to, because you made a decision. When you make a decision of quality, you will surround that decision by boundaries. Because when you make that decision that is in line with the Word of God, heaven is going to back you up.

Actions

Listening to the Word of God is good. Going to church is good. Thinking the Word is good. But somewhere along the line you are going to have to do the Word of God in order to see the fruit that God promised. Hearing the Word is only part of it. You are going to have to be willing to do what you hear. What actions will honor God? In short, Love God and love one another. Whatever action you are doing, God wants it to be a love action. If you’ve heard words of selfishness, you’ll have thinking that’s selfish, you’ll have emotions that will lead you into selfishness, you’ll make selfish decisions, then you’ll have selfish actions. If you get the Word of God in your life it will produce love thinking, which will give you love emotions, which will cause you to make love decisions, and then you’ll make love actions, and you’ll have love habits, and you’ll have a lovely character, and then you’ll end up in a destination that you’ll love. If you refuse to develop love, if you refuse to initiate love actions, then you cut off God’s will for your life.

Habits

Whatever you are doing is what you have the potential to develop into a habit in your life. Are your habits healthy? Do your habits line up with the Word of God? Have you taken on some bad habits? You cannot allow your habits to be dominated by sin. How do I get out of bad habits? God says, If you are going to change your habits, you are going to have to change your thoughts. Every deliverance from bad habits starts from a transformation of your thinking, transforming your mind. Not just changing your thinking. But change the way you think to line up with the Word of God. You can change the way you think from one perversion to another perversion. You have got to change the way you think to line up with the Word of God. Get involved in the Word and the Word will take care of whatever opposes the Word. You got to get the old out, but replace it with something good and well-pleasing and perfect.”

Character

Character is doing what is right, because it’s right, and then doing it right. Do the right thing, not because everyone else is doing right. Right and wrong should be based on the Word of God; not on what other people say. Character is doing the right thing right. You can do the right thing for all the wrong reasons. The Bible calls that hypocrisy. You will never rise above the limits of your character. The character of Jesus can be summed up in one word – love. That’s what He wants to see demonstrated in our life. We create character with every choice we make in life. We have the Word of God on one side and the word of the world on the other – what type of character will you have? When we make our choices, we create our character. Your character didn’t just show up out of nowhere. It was created through the choices that we have made throughout our lifetime.

Conclusion

Life is a series of decisions. Every decision we make is going to be based on the knowledge that we’ve obtained. You can’t do any better until you know better. If your knowledge is limited then your success will be limited. Where are you getting your information? Has the Bible become the final authority in your life?

If you are believing the wrong things, you are going to be making decisions off the wrong things and end up in the wrong place. You can read the Word of God, you can memorize the Word of God, you can believe the Word of God, but if you don’t have any actions based on the Word of God then everything you know is paralyzed, is useless, is wasted.

Foolish decisions will cost you. Every decision has to be well informed. You are not going to know how to make wise choices without knowing the wisdom that comes from God’s Word. Wise choices are going to be in line with the Word of God.

“I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

I have been crucified with Christ. We need to learn to say no to the flesh. The flesh is self-will, self-desire, what I want, who I want to be, what I want to do. The flesh is your will. The flesh needs to die. Your will needs to die. What you want needs to die. How you want to live needs to die. Who you think you are needs to die. What you should do needs to die. The respect you deserve needs to die. The flesh needs to die so you can really live.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. If God be for you, He is more than the whole world against you. So when my feet touch circumstances that are overwhelming and trying to succumb my faith, I step in and the presence of God abides in me and God makes a way where there is no way. Because Jesus lives in me.

The life I now live. I believe what God is looking for is a generation who will rise up and say, “Hey, we will live a life where we commit ourselves to the truth of God’s Word. Living it out in our daily lives, in our schools, in our communities, amongst our friends.” It’s time to be the brave. We need a generation who will live brave. Not live afraid, not live concerned about what everyone else is going to think. God is looking for a generation that is going to rise up and be brave.

Brave people will deal with the obstacles in their life. There are obstacles that can stop you from getting close to God. You will never step into what God wants for you when you aren’t prepared to deal with those obstacles. The brave are those who will deal with them.

Brave people see something the others don’t always see. When you look, you start to see. And when you start to see, God breaks your heart. When God starts to move in your heart, then you got to do something. That’s when God’s power starts to work through you. Even if you don’t know what you can do, we need to stop and do something. God is calling us to look right into the situation.

Brave people are prepared to place their lives in the hands of another. Your life may have been in the hands of someone who misused it and you ended up with the term of abuse. But that doesn’t have to define who you are. Because Jesus said, “I have come to heal the broken hearted and to set the captive free” (cf. Isaiah 61:1-3). When you do that with Jesus, He shows you what your value is and you start to be the person you were called to be.

BE BRAVE!!! Live the life now!!!