IYC 2018

I Cor. 16:9 says, “For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.”

We are now only one month away from the 2018 Crossfire International Youth Conference. Many preparations are underway to receive you for these anointed services and workshops. We’re excited and anticipate an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that we have not yet sensed in previous conferences. We pray that you are just as excited, and we can’t wait for you to get here!

This particular IYC is a bit more special to me because I will be teaching in two separate workshops on the topic, “Reaching Our Public Schools.” March 2, 2018, is a day we now look back on and say that God really has started something great. On that day, we took our Crossfire Youth Ministry worship team to Denham Springs High School, in Denham Springs, Louisiana, and we held a fully loaded service. Grace Brumley led praise and worship, we had testimonies from some of our very own Crossfire Youth, and Pastor Gabe brought a powerful evangelistic message. We believe as many as 40 high schools students were saved by the power of God that day, so this was not just another service; it was a miracle.

In 2016, Pastor Gabe asked if I would start leading our Crossfire Youth Ministries practicum at Jimmy Swaggart Bible College. Partnered together with JSBC, we provide college students who have a desire to be used in youth ministry the opportunity to grow in that field of ministry. Pastor Gabe asked that we begin to seek the Lord on direction for outreaches into our own community here in Baton Rouge. When you have no playbook, and you don’t know what to do, you get on your knees before the Lord and ask Him for direction. In prayer, the Lord spoke to my heart to believe Him for the public high schools, and that is exactly what I did. One year later, I was introduced to a man who is a regional director for a particular Christian group who does just what God was putting on my heart to do. He gave me the opportunity to meet with school officials, and I could see the hand of God begin to bring this promise to pass.

On February 3, I was speaking with one of our public high school students in Crossfire. I told her if she would go to her school officials and request that we come to do a service that we could definitely be there to do it. On February 5, it was on the principal’s desk signed and approved. After two years of believing God—not even knowing how this could be done—the promise was finally fulfilled.

The next day, after the services, I was sitting at home still overwhelmed by what God had done that night. Then I started to receive text messages from people who were at that service, and they were feeling the same way I was. Pastor Gabe and I talked about how unbelievable the night had been. The Lord prompted him to ask me, “Can we do this on a larger scale and if so, how?” I just sat there and thought, “Wow, that would be a big undertaking. A lot of research would have to go into that.” Suddenly it all began to come to me—of course we could do it. The “how” to reaching our public schools is this phrase: “student-led and student-initiated.” If the outreach is student-led and student-initiated, then there is very little that the school system can do to stop Christian groups from impacting the public schools. This is what opens up the doors for a ministry to even come onto school property and hold and evangelistic revival, because it is student led and student initiated.

I will be teaching two workshops this coming IYC on how to reach our public schools, and we will be challenging students to come to these meetings and make a commitment to reach their public schools. We plan to develop a fellowship with youth pastors, youth leaders, pastors, and even parents who want to see this carried out in their local schools. We will be calling this Crossfire Unite Student Fellowship. God has opened a great and effectual door to us, to carry the gospel into public schools. There will be opposition, but as long as we remain wise as serpents and harmless as doves God will be able to do great things.

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Parisragan1

Paris, accompanied by his wife Marybeth, coordinates and oversees <a href="https://gabrielswaggart.org/crossfire/unite">Crossfire Unite</a> fellowship groups. He is a regular teacher on SBN’s “<a href="https://gabrielswaggart.org/crossfire/gotc">Generation of the Cross</a>” with Gabriel Swaggart. Paris is a workshop instructor and assists with Church Needs for the <a href="https://gabrielswaggart.org/iyc">International Youth Conference</a>, and he has been an evening professor at <a href="https://jsbc.edu" target="_blank">Jimmy Swaggart Bible College</a> since the spring of 2017. He oversees all Crossfire Unite Student Outreaches. Paris also contributes writings to the <a href="https://gabrielswaggart.org/crossfire/blog?author=paris%20ragan">Crossfire Blog</a>.

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