Young Christian Leaders' Alliance

The Peace Center here in Greenville, South Carolina will be hosting the first-in-the-nation Presidential debate on Thursday, May 5th, the National Day of Prayer.  The Greenville Tea Party will also hosting a series of events on the same day in connection with the debate.  These events include a pre-debate Freedom Rally at the Hyatt downtown, a march to the debate location and a prayer vigil, and then a debate-watching party back at the Hyatt.  Many important liberty activists and officials will be speaking for the Tea Party, including Governor Nikki Haley, Congressmen Trey Gowdy and Jeff Duncan, GOA founder Larry Pratt, and many more!  Presidential candidates who are confirmed to be making comments at the rally include Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and Roy Moore.  A straw poll will be taken following the debate.  You can come on a walk-in basis beginning at 3pm, for only $10 with registration at the door.  I'll be volunteering in the rally so you can come see me too!  For more information, you can go to the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=198157323557412. ;

Please come if you can to support the growing surge to turn our country back to our Biblically-based Founding principles.  Whether you can make it or not, please be in prayer for those who attend, and especially for our next President as he seeks to properly lead America.  And may each of us by our examples blaze a path back in the Godly direction our country needs to go!

-Josiah

We're reading through the Bible in 2011!  This year marks the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of Scripture.  Join us on New Years' Eve to kick off this project with our IcePickNic.  Also, please view our new page for the Pure River Project.  It provides the strategy for the coming year.  It also answers the question, "Why use the KJV?"

If you’ve been to a YCLA “Lead the Lemon” event, you’ve probably heard of the leadership acronym with the all-important word “L.O.V.E.”  This acronym stands for Look out for others, Organize to meet their needs, Visualize success, and Enter action.  However, this acronym does not give an applicable leadership model for everyday influence and service.  How does one actually practice servant-leadership? 

The quick answer is that servant-leadership is more a spirit or attitude than a set of actions.  The best goal is simply to exemplify character qualities such as meekness, wisdom, diligence, and yes, compassion and love.  While this answer is correct, the YCLA realizes that actual actions will result from such an attitude.  Thus, we have put together the acronym S.E.R.V.E. to help you remember how to face leadership issues in your everyday life. It is as follows: 

1. See a problem that needs to be fulfilled. 

2. Envision a solution to the problem. 

3. Respond to the problem with appropriate action. 

4. Verify the results of your response. 

5. Equip others to do the same thing.  

Look for more detail on this newly formulated “cycle” of service principles in future YCLA resources!

Find out more about YCLA church/school events like Lead the Lemon

Subscribe to the YCLA newsletter

The YCLA is currently looking for people who would like to publish brief essays, stories, original poems, or simple research articles relevant to our mission of training, equipping, and motivating others to proclaim Christ.  We would be interested in content having to do with America's Godly heritage, leadership issues, Biblical studies especially regarding creation science, current opportunities for action, and more.  If you have ideas or contributions you would like to make in this area, please contact me as soon as possible. 

Beginning this fall, the YCLA would like to begin creating our newsletter in four-page format.  At the same time, however, I will be beginning law college next week, so I will not be able to do near as much on these kinds of long-term projects as I could previously.  Any amount of help would be greatly appreciated.  You can email the YCLA anytime at yclalliance@gmail.com. Thanks!  :-)

In Christ,

R. Josiah Magnuson

YCLA President

What will you be doing this year to support your school?  Have you considered starting a prayer group to uphold your friends, leaders, and teachers before the Lord?  The YCLA will be pressing forward once again in the 2010-11 school year with our Operation Pi vision: a “Prayer Initiative” for our education, in which you can be a part! 

If you are not praying for your school, you are missing an amazing blessing God wants to give you.  However, even if you already pray for your school on your own, it is still a great idea to begin praying regularly with your friends.  Not only does this action allow you to better track God’s workings and acknowledge Him to others, it creates a spirit of teamwork between students with a heart for Christ. 

The YCLA has developed two web pages that can aid in assembling such a group.  Go to www.YCLAlliance.org/operationpi.htm for more info on this project and to join our Facebook page!  Or, for resources and support in getting started, you can check out www.YoungChristianLeaders.org/prayer.aspx.

You may also email yclalliance@gmail.com with any comments, questions, or ideas.  Thanks for working with us to reclaim America’s schools!

Here's a link to, and text of, my speech I gave this past Monday night, March 29, 2010 for an oratory competition.  I didn't win, but I think God used my speech to help some people understand the true nature of this issue better.

http://youngchristianleaders.org/Documents/Abortion%20Solution.wma

Worldview Transformation: A Plan to End the Abortion Tragedy

By R. Josiah Magnuson, March 29, 2010

Abortion: seldom in American history has a problem come about with such enormous and tragic consequences, and yet so few forthcoming solutions.  Every day, over 3,700 U.S abortions take place, amounting to close to 1.4 million abortions every year.  According to this conservative estimate from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion source, over 50 million individuals have thus been brutally brought to their graves through a legalized extermination, an amount greater than that of those killed by Hitler, Stalin, and Mao combined.  Yet, our country stands still and watches.  

While politicians make empty promises, the media conducts interviews, and lobbying groups send out petitions, innocent children are being slaughtered.  Why?

The fundamental problem in America is not a political issue, but a moral one.  The right to life is only one moral principle which must be upheld.  God’s commands to abstain from sex outside of marriage, love Him before all else, and love our neighbor, are concepts which will, when followed, completely eliminate the abortion problem.

First, the fact of premarital sex is one of the leading causes for abortion.  64.4% of abortions are performed on women who were never married.  According to David Barton of the organization Wallbuilders, premarital birth rates have increased over 200% since 1963, the year the Supreme Court ruled that Bible reading was not permissible in the public classroom.  God commands abstinence before marriage.  Children must be taught from an early age to honor Biblical authority, if they are to be expected to honor it later.

Second, God commands us to love our neighbor.  Abortion is not an act of love.  It is an act of violence.  How can we claim to be Christians and not stand against this practice?  Nearly 20% of women who have abortions currently identify themselves as “Born again/Evangelical.”  We should be ashamed.

Third, God commands that we love Him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.  Children in a mother’s womb are the creation of God.  They are not evolutionary tissue, nor are they a “problem” or simple “inconvenience.”  Americans have become wrapped up in materialism, in maintaining our standard of living, and in doing what we want.  Have we forgotten that God is our Creator?  Have we forgotten the words of the Founders, that “all men… are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”?  Have we forgotten that among these rights is the right to life, for all?

Abortion will end when the people of the United States turn back to God and allow Him to transform their worldview.  But transformation does not start “out there” – it must start in our own hearts and minds.  We must commit to upholding the authority of God’s moral code.  We must prepare ourselves to teach and train others.  We must pray and fast – and we must love God first.

When the people as a whole recognize the disaster of abortion, wheels will be put in motion which no one knew existed.  Perhaps Supreme Court justices will finally be appointed who will overturn Roe v. Wade.  Perhaps bills will be passed to take the abortion issue away from Federal court jurisdiction and return it to the states.  Perhaps abortion will be regulated out of existence.  But perhaps, the abortion clinics will close on their own, because there will be no more demand.

Samuel Adams once wrote: “…I have long been convinced that our enemies have made it an object to eradicate from the minds of the people in general a sense of true religion and virtue, in hopes thereby the more easily to carry their point of enslaving them.  Indeed, my friend, this is a subject so important in my mind that I know not how to leave it.  Revelation assures us that ‘righteousness exalteth a nation’….  The diminution of public virtue is usually attended with that of public happiness; and the public liberty will not long survive the total extinction of Morals.”

In conclusion, the plan to finally end abortion is one of more than political action.  It must consist of a consistent moral training operation in our own homes and families.  It must include a Biblical foundation which affects our entire worldview.  It must be a return to the God-honoring principles of America’s Founders.  Respect for life will be regained when we regain a lifestyle of respect.

The solution to the abortion problem does not revolve around who we elect.  It revolves around who we are.

"Lead the Lemon" is an event we are currently developing for church or other youth groups, to introduce them to the YCLA while teaching numerous key leadership principles. 

What Happens

The main event is a nine-hole mini-golf match.  Each member of the groupbrings a lemon to use as the "golf ball."  They can pair up withothers, or compete individually.  Each must hit their lemon with a designated instrument - they must not use their hands.  It is generally hard to get the football-shaped lemons into the holes.  After the match, the group can use the lemons to make their own lemonade, to be used in a time of refreshment.  A presentation may be included between the mini-golf and lemonade-making, or may be added at the end.  

The Point

Pushing is not an effective leadership strategy.  If the lemon were pulled on a string, for instance, the game would be much easier.  In leading others, the best way to do so is by example - to live what you believe,"pulling" others along in love.  If people are forced to follow, they usually will not be committed for long.

Also, the saying "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" can be well-demonstrated in this event.  The lemons may be explained to represent one's life, sugar as the choice to have a positive ("sweet") attitude, and water as the Water of the Word which God has given us to live by.  While our lives sometimes may be "sour," and while God often may have to "squeeze" us some, we should remember that "He knoweth the way that I take - when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as [liquid !!] gold."  (Job 23:10)

What to Do

Please pray as we finalize plans and continue to schedule these events in churches.  If you would like info on hosting a "Lead the Lemon" event at your church, please contact us online or email us at yclalliance@gmail.com.  Thanks!

Can you imagine what it would be like if there were a group of committed, Bible-believing prayer warriors in every school across America?  Can you imagine these groups teaming up every week or every day to share concerns and successes, acknowledging God and asking Him to bring a revival in their school? Can you imagine the impact such groups would have, even if only a few existed? A witness for Christ would be unleashed which would be powerful.

Such is the vision of the YCLA for our project called Operation Pi. “Pi” stands for Prayer Initiative. The goal of this project is to create or identify at least 25 school prayer groups by the end of 2009, and 75 more by the end of 2010.  We have, at the time of this writing, achieved around half the 2009 number, in five states.

Anyone in school is strongly encouraged to participate. Leading a group of a few friends in prayer once a week is a relatively easy action compared to many projects YCLA supporters have helped with in the past. Even if you don’t think you are the “leader type,” you could mention the idea to someone who is.

Be involved in a tangible reformation effort!  Operation Pi is for you.

Go to www.youngchristianleaders.org/prayer.aspx for more info on how to get involved.