At the end of the worship service during the 2025 Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC) Europe Convention in Katowice, Poland, August 2, dozens of young Seventh-day Adventists from across Europe committed to mission deployment. The young attendees answered to an altar call by Jason Sliger, a missionary who serves with his family in a remote area of western Papua New Guinea.
“God has a mission field that has your name on it,” Sliger told the more than 600 attendees to the convention, which took place under the theme “To Every Nation.” “Tell God, ‘Lord, I’m willing to go. I don’t know where it is. I don’t know how all of this is going to happen, but I’m willing to take that step in that direction.’ ”
Connecting With People
That afternoon hundreds of GYC participants divided into groups and went out to downtown Katowice to connect with people. Young people distributed I Like Life and Signs of the Times magazines in four locations, conducted surveys on religious liberty, and offered free books and Bible excerpts.
Others participated in singing on pedestrian streets, did prayer walks, and offered free massages to passersby. Still others used pictures and an inflatable statue based on the dream in Daniel 2 to attract and engage onlookers. “Imagine that one day you find out that someone can trace their first contact with Bible truth to a young person who approached them and shared a message of faith and hope,” organizers said. “There’s no joy like this!”
A Living Sacrifice
Earlier, during his morning message, Sliger reminded young people that Christians are sent to the world as “sheep among wolves.” It’s not an easy task, and it’s a challenging enterprise, he conceded. But it might be what God is requiring of us, he emphasized.
Sliger decried the excessive emphasis on comfort that has affected, according to him, the focus on mission that many of the Adventist pioneers had. “As long as we are obsessed with our comfort and safety, the unreached will stay unreached,” he emphasized.
In that sense, Sliger also reminded GYC Europe Convention attendees that “Adventist mission was forged by young people who went not knowing if they would come back.” This is, according to him, what is also needed today. “Where is the boldness of our young people today?” he asked. “[Of people] who say, ‘I will go into the mouth of the lion, and if God wants to keep me alive, so be it, and if God wants me to die in that process, my life is in His hands. I’m willing to be a living sacrifice.’ ” He added, “Are you willing to die, if need be, so that others can know about Jesus? Not all of you will die. Many of you will live a long life. But some of you might.”
A Pressing Need
Sliger explained the rationale for the need for a renewed emphasis on worldwide mission, just as the Adventist pioneers showed. “Forty-two percent of the earth’s population—or about 3.4 billion people—is unreached,” he said. “We can’t go on like this. Something has to change in our minds.”
In that sense he also suggested that we must eschew the temptation to just lay low and wait for Jesus to come, when every day many are dying without having heard the gospel. And the time to act, Sliger emphasized, is now.
“I’m 45 years old,” Sliger shared. “I wish I could be where you are at right now. I wish I could be a young person in their late teens, early 20s, and have somebody tell this to me.”
Sliger explained that he didn’t learn about the unreached people until he was in his mid-30s. “I wept when I found out,” he said. “And it wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I was actually able to go to the mission field. . . . I wish I could be at the beginning of my life and be able to give the best years of my life in service to my Master.”
A Call to Active Mission
Against that background Sliger called young people to seriously consider mission deployment wherever God may call them. At the time of the altar call, however, he emphasized that this was not just another invitation. “Don’t respond because others are responding. This is a serious call I am giving you this morning,” he said.
Sliger acknowledged that he has made appeals like this before. “People come forward and then just continue to live their lives. Don’t fool around with God like that,” he told the young people. “But if you are really serious about this, and you are willing to take the next step—I don’t know where it’s going to take you; I don’t know what it means—but if you are willing to say, ‘Lord, I want to be a missionary somewhere in the world,’ come.”
He added, “How many of you are willing to say, ‘Lord, I’ll go and serve as a missionary for You. I’ll take my professional career that I’m doing here, and I will go serve in the same capacity in another foreign country where Jesus is not known, and I’ll be a light there in the secular workplace. . . . Lord, You called me to be a missionary. Show me when and where and how to best serve You.’”
Generation. Youth. Christ. is a supporting ministry not affiliated with the corporate Seventh-day Adventist Church.
To read the original article, please go here.
