I remember it just like it was yesterday: Black Diamond middle school camp 2019. I was leading a cabin of 5 middle school boys and one of the most difficult tasks of my day was to wake them up and get them moving towards breakfast. The only way I found that would work was for me to switch on the bright cabin lights and start singing to them in a high-pitched voice. I promised I would stop as soon as they all woke up and got out of bed. Usually between the light and the noise they had enough motivation.

Fast forward to this last month: all Tacoma YFC ministry staff attended the first-ever vRLC (Virtual Regional Leadership Conference) with leaders from across the nation. We spent time in spiritual growth activities and listening to speakers on a variety of topics such as abiding with Jesus, cultural competency, leading teams who build authentic Christ sharing relationships, and prayer.

As you may have experienced by now, doing anything virtually that requires you to sit for a long time can be tiring. However, one big takeaway for me was a quote from one of the speakers when he said, “Bring light, not heat.”

This was about the context of sharing truth in conversations with young people. So much of the time in our culture we come with heat to share truth or have conversations with an agenda to win debates or get people to see our side of things. This light the speaker was talking about wasn’t about turning on the light switch at full blast and singing obnoxiously until I received compliance. The light that the speaker was sharing about was more like a dimmer switch. We get to slowly and graciously turn up the light of Christ in the lives of 11-19 year-olds as we walk with them through the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Our amazing staff and volunteers minister with diverse youth; representative of many cultural, socio-economic, and even religious backgrounds. To do this effectively these Christian adults don’t come to students in our ministry sites with heat that pressures, judges, or labels. Instead, we come with light to partner with God to empower, restore, and guide youth to a Savior who will show up in their lives through the Holy Spirit to convict them of sin and move them to a place of giving up their trajectory of hopelessness for God’s story, which is a lamp and light for their path.

I would encourage you that if you have anyone in your life, whether they are 15 or 55, and you want to do effective relational evangelism, to think about how you can turn up the light instead of the heat in your relationships. The power of the Gospel proclaimed and demonstrated should be enough for us to light up the room with Jesus’ love and beauty so that He can work on bringing up the hot topics in their lives and hearts; because His heat is holy and refining, bringing lifelong invitation and conviction to follow Jesus wholly.