“Learning that God is with us everywhere we go is a blessing.”
Those are words not from a pastor, a theologian, or even a quote from the Rev. Billy Graham.
This came from Damon, a normal 11-year-old, who probably enjoys video games, sports and cartoons like most boys.
But what makes Damon different is that he’s now committed to something those even quadruple his age often find to be a daunting task — confidently sharing his faith every chance he gets.
Studies by the Barna Group show that Americans are five times more likely to come to Christ between the ages of 5 and 12 than after age 19.
That means for many, “What you believe at age 13 is what you will die believing,” says Chad Miller, Director of Children's and Youth Evangelism Training at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
This impressionable stage of adolescence is the driving force behind BGEA’s Dare to Be a Daniel program. The initiative offers evangelism training kits for kids ages 9-14 and curriculum guidance for church leaders and teachers.
Miller notes that, “More than half of teen Christians don’t know how to share their faith.”
“Picture the significance of children coming to Christ, growing in Him, and sharing their faith on their own with their friends,” he adds.
To date, at least 29,038 young people have completed the Dare to Be a Daniel training.
Damon is among the 11,000 teens and tweens who became trained “Daniels” at Dare to Be a Daniel camps.
“We see Dare to Be a Daniel visibly used and a viable part of camp ministry for the next 2-3 years, and we’re excited about that,” says Miller.
And although many of the kids who participate are already Christian, stories of salvation continue to pour in.
Miller says, “It’s not uncommon for every teacher that sends us a comment to say that someone came to Christ within the classroom while they were going through this.”
“They are confronted with the beauty and the simplicity of the Gospel,” he adds. “There is power, Holy Spirit power, in the Gospel.”
One in three Americans under the age of 30 reports being religiously unaffiliated, so it may be a surprise to learn that religion is making a comeback on American campuses.
It's not that campuses have become holy places, and religious zealots are not calling the shots. But religion is no longer marginalized from campus life as it was in the late 20th century. A generation ago, many Americans and most colleges and universities could live with the myth that religion was a purely private matter, but today no one questions that religion can have powerful effects on individuals and societies. During the last four years, we crisscrossed the country visiting more than 50 colleges and universities as directors of the Religion in the Academy project. We spoke with hundreds of faculty, administrators, and students about all the ways they are now engaging religion, and we came away from those conversations with a new sense that adding religion to the mix--in the form of new student life programming, but also in the curriculum, in study centers and programs of research, and in community engagement--can be a net educational gain for everyone. Today's interest in religion comes from the bottom up--a significant change from the past. From the colonial days through the 19th century, religion was typically imposed on students from the top down. Now, students themselves are driving a re-engagement with religion. Religion, for them, is not necessarily the old-fashioned "organized" religion handed down to them by their elders, but rather a personal exploration of meaning, purpose, values, and global diversity--something that many of them would call "spirituality" rather than "religion." This highlights a major difference between the religion coming back to campus and the religion of yore. It is very difficult today to draw any neat line of separation between "religion" and the wide variety of "secular" life stances that are also present on campuses. Whether people refer to the values and commitments that shape their lives as religion, spirituality, humanism, secularism, or agnosticism, they are referring to values and commitments that function socially and psychologically in much the same way. On many campuses, the definition of religious life has expanded to encompass all the religious, spiritual, moral, and ethical concerns of students. Almost without exception, today's college students have friends who are members of other historic religions, and they want those friends to feel comfortable. This desire to be hospitable to those of different faiths is evident across the country. The student-leaders of a Jewish organization told us they wanted their Hillel center to be a place where everyone, not just Jews, felt welcomed and at home. MIT has a chaplain for Zoroastrian students. The United States Air Force Academy has a Wiccan shrine on campus alongside its large Protestant chapel. Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City retains its solidly Mormon character, but it now has a room on campus designated for Muslim prayers.
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