One of the greatest, most practical breakthroughs in my Christian life has been a concept called "take five." It is so simple that anyone, even the youngest believer in Christ can practice. And the benefits ... well, they are "out of this world."

What is "take five"? It is simply to begin developing a habit of taking five minutes out of your day to stop everything. Find a spot where no one can bother you, where the phone can be ignored, where it is most quiet. Slip off to this five minute oasis and just call on the Lord Jesus by name. Tell Him that you love Him and ask Him to reveal Himself to you in the next five minutes. Use this time to sit quiet, or talk to the Lord about anything and everything, or sing a song, or read a verse, or ... but just practice to calm down for five minutes.

Several years ago another Christian worker and I were running our High School and Junior High youth camps as usual. We did the normal perfunctory things like fellowship, pray, etc. for the camp and the kids. But what was utmost in our hearts was to find something that the kids would take home with them. Something that no one else could spoil and that no one else could make into a religion. We had tried all kinds of methodologies to allow young people to go home from a spiritual high and repeat what they had received.... yet it never worked. Usually within a day or two or at most a week or two, young people were "back to normal" in their own world with very little evidence that they had touched a marvelous Christ for a whole week.

We finally realized that we could only offer them a pure and simple Christ and that only a pure and simple Christ would be real to them even when they went home from camp. So how could we give them such a Christ? First of all, we realized that our teaching was secondary, not primary. What a big breakthrough. For years, we pumped our young people with doctrine and teaching with the hope that they would grasp it, internalize it and live it. This never seemed to work. Second of all, we would come up with new ideas that might cling to their minds or hearts or that their serving ones or youth workers could continue. For instance, we taught how important memorization is, we taught that young people need to be surrounded by adults, college age believers and even younger aged kids for a "family" setting. We taught all kinds of topical matters (dating, drugs, music, peer pressure, etc.) that were healthy and sound ... but with very little effect.

After about five years of the same results, we fell on our faces to the Lord and vowed to do nothing until He spoke to us. For months, there was nothing. Eventually in the spring when it was getting close to planning time for the camps, the Lord gave a small feeling. That feeling grew into three main items to which we know hold dearly: 1) young people must touch Christ directly, 2) young people must see how enjoyable and profound the Bible is, and 3) young people must have fun in a wholesome, protected environment. Wow! It seemed we struck gold as we began to change our entire thinking to stress these three matters.

Instead of forcing kids to pray, to speak, to do whatever, we simply sent all 100 to 1000 of them off by themselves for five minutes! I can do this same exercise with my wife and three kids. We all take five regularly even when in the same room together. Instead of pounding the young people with truth and teaching them the "rights and wrongs" of our theology, we simply told the Bible in stories; we made the Word come alive in today's language. We would retell passages from the Bible and make them practical to today in terms of enjoying Christ and touching Him. We strongly downplayed any kind of teaching oriented sharing. Lastly, instead of having a small number of saints to serve the young people year after year, we encouraged a family environment with openness. We would have small groups in which young people and their parents were in the same group! The secret? Tell the parents to keep their mouths shut and listen without any judgment. Parents came to play and pray, not to "discipline" and "teach."

Does this sound too simple? Good. Because the way of the world is complicated and convoluted and confusing. John wrote in his first epistle that young men, the strong ones, must not love the world. (1 John 2:15) What is the world? Complication and over analyzation verses simply coming to Christ. The way of Christ is simple ... "Come to Me all you who toil and are heavily burdened and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28) The book of Hebrews in several verses mentions coming forward to Christ (Hebrews 4:16; 7;25; 10:22; 12:22). This is the most basic, fundamental, elementary essence of our walk as believers in Christ. We should practice this ourselves and help others to practice coming forward to Christ. Our camps became a family resting place emphasizing the age group we were working with. We no longer spent tons of time preparing intricate messages of teaching nor small group sessions to force feed the young ones. Rather, we spent time in prayer and fellowship, anticipating the Lord's move in ourselves and in the young people and in the parents as we set aside time with Him, as we enjoy His word in such a living way and as we spent time having tons of fun together: young and old.