On December 2, 1967, U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, two days into his insurgent presidential challenge to Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War, addressed a gathering of 400 peace activists, mostly young people, in the city of Chicago.
Not since the Civil War had America been so divided—over foreign and military policy, between ethnic groups, between generations. And like so often in the human story, those of tender years were rising to demand reformatory change. The later words of historian Simon Schama were again coming true: “Revolutions are the empire of the young” [##1|Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), p. 8.##].
In his signature style of dispassionate coolness, Senator McCarthy directed his audience to the past, drawing parallels between pivotal moments in history and the present moment of American crisis. In conclusion, he urged his hearers: “Let us sort out the music from the sounds, and again respond to the trumpet and the steady drums” [##2|Theodore H. White, The Making of the President—1968 (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1969), p. 87.##].
Thirty-five Decembers later, on a snowy southern California mountaintop, another group of 400 young people would gather to sort out the music from the sounds, and to respond to the trumpet and steady drums of the original, Bible-based Seventh-day Adventist faith.
GYC at 20
Generation of Youth for Christ, known for its first four years as the General Youth Conference, marked its twentieth year of existence at its annual convocation in Phoenix, Arizona, held December 28, 2022 to January 1, 2023. The 400 who assembled at Pine Springs Ranch in December 2002 would soon swell into the thousands, with the largest number likely present in Houston, Texas, in 2011, where at least 8,000 were present for the divine hour on Sabbath morning. Despite temporary setbacks during the COVID pandemic, the numbers in Phoenix nearly reached pre-pandemic levels, with somewhere between 4,100 and 4,500 present at the Sabbath service.
Gene McCarthy’s statement about music and sounds was well illustrated at the first GYC, as one entered the main assembly hall and found the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal placed on every other chair. Israel Ramos, newly elected president of the movement, spoke on the opening night of GYC’s new yet time-honored agenda, in particular its focus on Biblical truth and reverent worship, the latter excluding much of the contemporary style which by then dominated so much of youth ministry in First World Adventism.
The young there present sang with a passion I hadn’t heard for years in a youth-led Adventist song service. But the spiritual seriousness of those present had only started to manifest itself. That first night I suffered jet-lag and great weariness, having flown westward from New York City, and was tempted to sleep in rather than attend the morning devotional. But in the end I constrained myself to set an example for those present, and so I arose and went to the meeting, wondering how many would show up for a 6 a.m. sermon. As it turned out, all 400 of those present were in attendance, listening to a presenter whose series that weekend would focus on striving to be among the 144,000.
Anyone today who wonders how the passion and spirit of GYC have endured through the years need only visit the prayer room, which since 2017 has been filled with hundreds of attendees—at 5:45 each morning, no less. At times these gatherings, many of which I’ve been privileged to attend, have been packed to the level of “kneeling room only.”
It is no exaggeration to state that no youth revival movement in the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church has demonstrated such persistent Biblical faithfulness, numerical staying power, and widespread denominational influence as GYC. In his chronicle of the 1968 U.S. presidential campaign, driven in large measure by youthful activism, historian Theodore White describes the role of the young in the history of that year:
With their young bodies, limitless energies and mature drives, student activists lead the kind of raw manpower which in other generations of history caused great and hostile nations to tremble [##3|Theodore H. White, The Making of the President—1968, p. 79.##].
Despite the efforts of some to weaken its impact, discredit its doctrinal and moral agenda, and at times replicate its passion with a more moderate spirituality, the GYC movement has sustained its appeal and its strength in a manner likely unique in Adventist history. No one who has studied the trajectory of revivals through the years, especially among the young, can fairly dispute the remarkable character of the GYC experience. One would be hard pressed to find another grassroots force among the church’s youth, at any point in the Adventist narrative, that has generated anything like this for a comparable period of time. (One noted with interest that many present at the recent conference in Phoenix had not even been born when the first GYC was held in southern California.) When one surveys the contemporary landscape of Seventh-day Adventist youth ministry, it is difficult not to conclude that so far as devotion to Scripture, moral commitment, and evangelistic zeal in First World Adventism are concerned, GYC is a model that stands virtually alone.
Assessment
What in fact has made the GYC story so unique in the Adventist experience? Perhaps the following markers offer some explanation:
1. Bible/Spirit of Prophecy faithfulness. Regardless of age or circumstance, true revival and reformation cannot occur without a return to the written Word as the supreme lodestar of consecration and spirituality. As in the days of good King Josiah, when the book of the law was discovered in the temple (II Kings 22:8), as in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah (Neh. 8:1), recovering God’s written counsel has been the guiding light of the GYC movement from its inception.
2. Refusal to sidestep controversy. Too many in modern and contemporary Adventism have nurtured the illusion that revival and reformation will come to the church through some feel-good convulsion of spiritual ecstasy, where everyone comes together in a “kumbaya” moment and no one gets hurt. No such model of spiritual renewal can be found in the Bible. The anatomy of Biblical revival and reformation is consistently one of sins forsaken, false worship abandoned, and apostate leaders punished. From Moses to Nehemiah this is the story of the Sacred Narrative.
GYC has not avoided controversial issues in the modern Seventh-day Adventist Church. Its seminars and plenary sessions have directed the young, and all others present, to Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy writings as the means whereby such disputes can be settled. Much of the movement’s appeal has risen from its willingness to confront these difficult questions on the basis of the inspired witness, together with the rightful awareness that controversy avoidance only makes problems worse.
3. Recognition that message must drive mission, not the other way around. Other youth revival movements in the church’s recent past have focused almost exclusively on outreach and mission opportunities. GYC also has focused in large measure on mission, but always with the foundational awareness that message comes first. One can’t pursue a mission in any line unless the nature of the mission is first established and understood. GYC has not made the mistake other groups in recent Adventist history have made in this regard. Its public witness has consistently maintained that the church’s Bible-based, Spirit of Prophecy-affirmed, distinctive message must determine the content and provide the zeal for the church’s mission to the world.
4. Eschewing extremism. As with every reformatory movement in history, theologically conservative Adventism has often been beset by extremist tangents and fanatical diversions. Many of these remain a problem even now among theological conservatives in the denomination. Such heresies as anti-Trinitarianism, prophetic time-setting, fanatical hobby horses relative to lifestyle (e.g. diet, dress, relationships), not to mention such current aberrations as the anti-vaccine movement, the mingling of secular political ideology with Biblical preaching, and theocratic approaches to civil government—all have been encountered by the GYC movement in the course of its 20-year journey. But in every case it is fair to say the negative impact of these elements has been minimal and felt only at the movement’s edges.
At the most recent GYC conference in Phoenix, a balanced and well-reasoned discussion of religious liberty issues—in particular relative to the COVID vaccine debate, political involvement, and racial justice—was facilitated in one of the seminars. Much more could have been presented, to be sure, but the conversation made possible by the presenters provided an excellent start to what will likely be further exploration within the movement of the issues involved.
5. Avoiding fragmentation. When one reviews the history of modern conservative Adventism (not to mention the Protestant Reformation and similar movements throughout history), this can likely be regarded as one of GYC’s most remarkable achievements—for which, like the others listed here, God alone deserves the glory. All reformatory movements draw to themselves strong minds and formidable wills, and for obvious reasons; no initiative seeking major change in a given status quo can flourish without determined, even stubborn personalities. And as such personalities collect around a particular cause, varying agendas produce conflicting gravitational forces that can pull the movement apart. Such parting of the ways doesn’t always lead to division of purpose, but all too often it does.
GYC, amazingly, has avoided this. Whatever differences have surfaced throughout the movement’s rise and growth, all have recognized that what unites GYC has always been vastly greater than that which has occasionally divided it. Those over the past two decades who have chosen to give the movement a long-term commitment of time, energy, and devotion have seen in its purpose and passion a potential not likely achievable if structural fragmentation should ever come about.
6. Defeating spiritual dissolution resulting from betrayal by prominent mentors and leaders. It isn’t hard for the young to experience discouragement when a prominent spiritual mentor goes astray, whether morally or theologically. The journey of the GYC movement has witnessed such betrayal along its path, by far the most painful example of which was the discovery of a succession of moral falls on the part of one whose mentorship appears to have been most pivotal in bringing the movement into being.
I well remember when word of this tragedy crossed my computer screen. (I am still half-wondering when someone will tell me it really didn’t happen.) For months I feared if the incident and its aftermath would cause large numbers within the movement to abandon the cause, to cease their quest for purity and integrity because one who so earnestly urged such discipline had proved unfaithful. Many of GYC’s critics, online and elsewhere, gave notable evidence that this was precisely what they expected, and likely hoped for.
But GYC has never been, nor is it now, the spiritual progeny of a single individual. Its agenda and zeal have never been focused on, or powered by, the convictions or charisma of any one person. Its appeal and purpose have proved largely invulnerable to the faults or foibles of those in whom the movement might at times have reposed its trust. Like all of life’s trials and missteps, such experiences serve to test and advance the consecration of the striving faithful. GYC is about God’s written Word and the Christ there revealed—nothing more, nothing less. No failure or apostasy on the part of any founder or prominent voice within its ranks has succeeded in derailing its upward course.
7. The task that remains. Through the Savior’s grace and power and that of His Spirit, the GYC movement has accomplished great things. But much more remains to be accomplished. Great issues of theology, worship, and lifestyle continue to vex the church, and GYC—through its influence on the rising generations—must raise its voice ever more strongly to address and articulate these issues through the written counsel of God (Isa. 8:20; Acts 17:11). Most of all perhaps, it must equip its young acolytes to explain to their peers and others why these issues matter, and why the church cannot accomplish its mission to humanity unless its witness stands in strict accord with the written Word and its transcendent measure of time and culture.
Conclusion: Visions of Future Glory
As I reflect on the past twenty years of a movement likely unparalleled in the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I recall the following visionary flourish which found its way into my 2013 report on the GYC conference held that year. I pray that the following blend of vision, passion, and suggested opportunity can still inspire the movement’s leaders to prove worthy, by God’s grace, of their role in Adventism’s glorious future.
On a large academy campus, notorious among students and parents as a “party school” with little spiritual interest, I see a girl in the junior class, hitherto shy and indrawn, driven by the laxity and apathy about her to seek private refreshment from God’s Word, and from one or more Ellen White books on her parents’ shelves. Her reserve is breached at last in a vigorous religion class discussion, as both teacher and students voice contempt for the church’s refusal to ordain women to ministry and to allow their LGBT friends a place in its fellowship. With grace and calmness she speaks from her heart, disclosing for the first time her growing convictions. Her words have the effect of a bucket of ice water loosed over the heads of those present. Caught off guard, unable to answer her challenge, most sit in silence, and the teacher’s halting reply betrays his own unease at something he clearly didn’t expect.
The girl begins to invite friends to study in her dorm room, and soon her campus profile rises. As the months pass, those close to her suggest she run for religious vice-president of the student body in the coming elections. Not a natural at such forwardness, she hesitates, but after prayer and thoughtful consideration she agrees. Much to her surprise, she wins the hearts and votes of her peers, and finds herself a campus leader.
During her year in office, the school is transformed. Godly speakers come to campus and excite a seriousness about faith and truth never before experienced by the students. Prayer and study groups spring up, social media sites abound in stories of blessing, conversion, and sins forsaken. Faculty reaction is mixed—a few are pleased, some are outraged by this sampling by the young of the “dreadful legalism” they had hoped to leave behind, all are astonished. Outreach to the community begins, Bible studies are solicited, and an evangelistic effort where students themselves do the preaching brings more baptisms than any church in the area has seen in many years.
Next we visit the home of a middle-aged, well-to-do, professional couple, whose marriage has slowly unraveled through abuse, self-focus, and philandering. Favorite authors, speakers, and spiritual mentors in the church have encouraged a lenient, permissive view of God, by which they have come to excuse cherished indulgences. They have talked openly of divorce, and only a thread now holds them together.
Exacerbating their family crisis is the new interest of their college-age children in a form of Adventism they have long since tossed aside as outmoded and irrelevant. Now, when their two sons and one daughter come home for holidays and summers, the parents pass their rooms in the hall and hear reverent music playing, with Bibles, Steps to Christ, and The Great Controversy open before them. On Sabbaths they ask that the television be turned off, and the parents soon learn their daughter has broken up with her non-Adventist boyfriend. Their children have been known to shock them through the years, but these are contingencies they hadn’t programed into the system!
One evening the parents stare at each other across a silent living room, about to trudge in pain to separate spaces for the night. Slowly, somehow, they find a way to talk, in tones not heard between them in recent memory. The example of their offspring—the radical change in their speech, conduct, and private choices—has unnerved them, forcing unbidden thoughts to mind. If stubborn, free-spirited young people could experience this kind of turnaround, could there perhaps still be hope for recovering the love they once shared? Could the faith held by past generations of Adventists—even if not always practiced and often taken for granted—really hold the key?
In quiet, almost whispered tones, with tears flowing and voices breaking, they ask each other’s forgiveness and vow to start anew. They walk together up the stairs and call the children to the much-neglected, stone-cold hearth. For the first time in long years, they enjoy a family worship, which the eldest son leads. Confession of wrongs and a season of prayer crown what is truly a holy moment for all. And mother and father close the evening in each other’s arms, retiring for the night together for the first time in months.
Finally, we visit one of our large university campuses, one with a very liberal theological reputation. Students with a passion for Scripture and distinctive Adventism have grown in numbers and influence during the past several years. Prayer and study groups meet in the dorms and in village apartments many nights of the week. Witnessing in neighboring towns and cities has become a weekend pastime. The previous year’s student elections have brought to office a student body president and several fellow officers with the goal of bringing revival and reformation to their school. The student association senate now has a majority of members sharing these convictions. And in a move both unprecedented and jaw-dropping among the largely permissive faculty and administration, the student association president and his colleagues request that a well-attended, annual campus pleasure gathering be called off this year, and that in its place a time of united prayer be held for both university and community, in light of national and global events now racing toward apocalypse.
And at last we meet them all—at a GYC convocation now the largest in the movement’s history. The cause has now spread throughout global Adventism, demolishing stereotypes and collapsing popular notions as to the alleged hypocrisy and failed zeal of all such endeavors. Stories of the ensuing revival and transformation of the church’s youth have spread to secular and non-Adventist religious media. A demonstration of passion, purity, and purpose such as Adventism, nominal Christianity, and the now-attentive world have never before witnessed, is presently on display. In the words of the 2013 GYC theme song:
Before men and angels, each soul plays a part
For you are the world, and the stage is your heart.
The curtain descends on Act I of history’s final drama. Act II is about to begin.
***
The words of the modern prophet come to mind as we close these reflections:
With such an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained, might furnish, how soon the message of a crucified, risen, and soon-coming Saviour might be carried to the whole world! How soon might the end come—the end of suffering and sorrow and sin! How soon, in place of a possession here, with its blight of sin and pain, our children might receive their inheritance where “the righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein forever,” where “the inhabitants shall not say, I am sick,” and “the voice of weeping shall be no more heard.” Psalm 37:29; Isaiah 33:24; 65:19 [##4|Ellen G. White, Education, p. 271.##].
Hasten the day!
REFERENCES
1. Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), p. 8.
2. Theodore H. White, The Making of the President—1968 (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1969), p. 87.
3. Ibid, p. 79.
4. Ellen G. White, Education, p. 271.
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan