The power and effect of doing a personal work with the young people are many times greater than large meetings. Big meetings do not have much effect on young people; individual contact is most effective. The emphasis of a genuine work with young people is individual contact. We can work with young people individually year round without holding one large meeting. This may shock some of you because our American culture tends to stress larger meetings rather than one on one care. We are so busy we try to "kill many birds with one stone," but in the spiritual raising up of our young people there is NO replacement for one on one nurturing and care through personal contact.

Many times this kind of one on one care seems fragmentary and a waste of time. We may be able to contact only one person in an hour, and sometimes, we may not be able to contact even one person after half a day. It seems times is pitifully wasted. Seemingly this way is less effective than holding big meetings where you can speak to so many at once. Rather, experience tells us that holding big meetings is useless. If we hold big meetings all year round, there may not be much result. All you gain will be some shallow ones. Please remember, however, if you pay attention to individual contact, although you may not gain one person in a month or may gain only one person in several months, each one who is gained through your personal contact counts. Moreover, like you, he/she will contact others. You have gained one, but eventually this one will become two, two will become four, four will become eight, and eight will become sixteen, and every one of them will be solid. After some time you will see a great number of people gained in a solid way.

If we neglect individual contact and pay attention only to young people's meetings, we will end up with only something on the surface, like loose sand without foundation. It will not ge able to produce any solid ones. If we want to produce solid ones, we must have personal contact. We must not be disappointed with anyone; rather, we would spend time to contact everyone individually.

If we practice taking care of the young people one on one, gradually we will gain insight and experience. We will know which one among so many young people should be contacted and gained first. Later, after that one has been gained by the Lord, one thing is sure: Since you stirred him/her up in this way, he/she will go to stir others up in the same way. In this way, one by one will be affected, just like the unending multiplication of offspring. Therefore, you can see that even if there are no big meetings, many can still get saved and many can still be raised up to love the Lord. That is the time when you can begin to hold big meetings because the young people will be interested and full of initiative to gather together.

When we have personal contact with young people, on the one hand, we need to have broad contact with them, treating every one of them equally; on the other hand, we need to have specific contact. What I mean by specific contact is exercising spiritual insight and following the Spirit's leading to sense which ones, among so many young people, we should lead to the Lord first. Then we spend our effort on that one to help them receive the Lord's salvation or to help them grow a step in their Christian life. Once this one is raised up they will influence the other young brothers and sisters.

How do we know which ones the Spirit is leading us to? Initially that may not be so easy to determine, but as you pray to the Lord and fellowship with others and consider the young people one by one, the Lord will place specific ones in your heart. When you go to work all of the sudden their name comes up in your mind. When you are going shopping or working at home, one of the young ones will come up in your heart and you pray for them and bring their name to the Lord. Eventually, you have a deeper sense for that one and realize that God has set them apart for you to care for specifically. It is very much like caring for our own children. We love and care for them all, but daily the specific care varies depending on which child occupies our heart the most. We still feed them all, we still support them all, but usually one gets a more specific care at certain times than the others based on the Lord's working in us and in them.

If you want to help the young people, you must have an interest in them. This might sound obvious to you, but in our natural man, we are interested in ourselves and not in others. To test our real interest in others, we can check to see how we look at others. Do we look at their faults at first? If so, we cannot help them. Another test is partiality. Some people have a special liking for the young people whom they consider good, but they purse their mouths and shake their heads when they see those whom they think are not good. This is wrong. Often times God will prove to you that your evaluation of those whom you think are good is inaccurate. Instead, those whom you consider not good may be greatly used by God. Therefore, it is hard to say that those whom we feel are good now will be good in the future, and those whom we feel are bad today will be bad tomorrow. We should never trust in our own judgment.

Regardless of whether the young people are good or bad, we need to treat everyone the same, and we need to like them and be concerned for them. We take them just as they are without expectations. For instance, do they walk as if they are flying or strutting? Then we should fly or strut with them. Are they talking jive? We should also talk jive. Are they playing ball? Play a game with them. This is not political or hypocritical if our heart is pure and loving. Neither is this a waste of time or misleading to the young ones. On the contrary genuine care and interest produces genuine openness and communication. It opens their heart to us so that we can talk to them about what is in our heart; we can share the Lord Jesus with them.

Let me give a very practical example of an experience I have had in the past. One time I ran into a young brother on the street. So I asked him where he was going, and he told me, "I am going to a rock concert because I am very bored." Part of me wanted to rebuke him with a stern face, saying, "Why are you going to a rock concert? How can you do that?" Yet I realized to do this would only produce a "wall" between us and I would never be able to help this young man. So instead I just started up a little conversation with him. I asked him what group was playing and where the concert was. Then we walked together and I offered him a ride. He was as surprised as I was at the offer, but I realized the Lord's love for this boy. On the way to the concert the Lord prompted me to ask him some questions about his practice of talking to the Lord and reading his Bible. That's all I said, but I found out years later that this conversation and others with this young man had some impact. He would always consider his need to read the Bible and talk genuinely to the Lord.

The adage says, "Don't judge a book by its cover." This applies most to young people. We should never be concerned first about the young people's mistakes and radical demeanor; do not condemn them at all. Rather, the Lord would give us the love to show them we are their good friend, that we sympathize with them, and that we are interested in them and in their affairs.

Helping the young brothers and sisters depends not on our ability to give them good spiritual messages, but on our regular, frequent contacts with them. When we contact the young brothers and sisters, we also need to seek the Lord's presence for how and when and where. We shouldn't just call them up and ask them, "So how many chapters in the Bible have you read lately? Are you praying regularly?" These kinds of questions should not come up until we have a solid relationship with them as a base. This could take eight to ten times together to produce. To repeat, we should not talk about spiritual things at the initial contact with them. This is even more important with unbelievers. We should not talk about the Lord Jesus when we first contact them as a rule. Of course, the Lord may lead us to preach the gospel to some and we need to follow the Spirit's leading, not the letter of the law.

To refrain from mentioning the Lord Jesus may seem to you as a "retreating," but actually you are advancing. We must learn to sense their feeling until one day we feel the time is right to impart the gospel or a Word of the Lord to them. However, if we do this prematurely, it is easy to cause a negative reaction. And if we mess up the whole thing, that person may never be able to receive the Lord Jesus their whole life. It is the same with the young people. We need to learn to wait until we have enough contact with a young person where they feel comfortable and liked by us. Once we have touched their genuine feelings and have earned their trust, then we can begin to talk about spiritual things.

We should not put too much emphasis on doctrines, not only when we have personal contact with the young people, but also when we are preaching the gospel or giving messages to them. Doctrine produces little effect in the long run. The more we speak doctrines, the more the young people become dead, cold and backsliding. What the young people need are ones who can sense their feelings in a very practical way. They have many practical problems and issues to deal with. Therefore, we need to spend time to study these problems in their practical living. This includes before and after their salvation experience. What we speak should always stress the practical matters we have touched in their lives.

We need to have positive faith in every young person. This means that with the good ones we should believe that they will get better, and with the ones who do not seem to be good, we should also believe that they will become good. Moreover, we should have more faith in those who are seemingly not good and believe that they will become good and not have as much faith in those who are good.

Brothers and sisters, we are all Adam's descendants, a fallen race. Even the children of godly people are fallen. We cannot say that to be fallen is right, but please remember that all those who truly know God's salvation were once fallen people. If a person has been preserved since his birth and has never lived in a fallen way, he cannot have a deep experience of god's salvation. One who has never lived in a fallen way cannot experience God's salvation. I am not encouraging people to be fallen. Neither am I encouraging them to be loose with their children. This is not what I mean. What I mean is that you should never think that it is all right to despise certain young ones simply because they are not good. This concept is wrong.

The present condition of the young people does not determine in the long run whether they are good or bad. Today, we may consider a certain young man to be very bad, but one day he may become very good, contrary to our view. In the same way, today we may think that a certain young man is very good, but some day he may become very bad. Therefore, all those who have some experience working with young people will say, "We don't trust in the young people's condition. On the positive side, however, we fully believe that God will gain them one day." This will deliver us from working only on the young people whom we consider good and putting aside those whom we consider bad. Actually, sometimes it is hard for those who are consistently good to have spiritual perception, and often their growth is slow. However, if you spend time on those seemingly bad ones to turn them around, three spiritual understanding will be opened immediately after they have made a turn to the Lord.

All those who desire to work with young people need to learn how to match and adapt to the young people. Do not ask them to adapt to you. You need to adapt to them to such an extent that you are like glue. Glue adapts the best; there is not one place it cannot adapt to. It adapts to flat surfaces, rugged places, twisted places, and places with corners. Glue can be applied to any place. We who work with the young people need to deal with our character to such an extent that we are just like glue. If anyone wants to serve God, he must have a character that is not only strong but also pliant; he must be one who tempers strength with pliancy to adapt to others. If we labor with the young people properly, even if one of them desires to go to the moon, we will follow him there to adapt to him.

Many say that the young people are busy with school, jobs, hobbies, etc. However, if we really know the young people's situation, we will know that with them, being busy is not a problem. In fact, being occupied with positive and healthy activities preserves their vessel from being damaged. Rather, the real issue is their interest. If they are interested in something, no matter how busy they are, they will have time for it. They will find time for the things they are interested in even if they are busy.