Hundreds of Young People Leave California With a Promise to Change World

By Dan Weber, communication director, North American Division

Hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist young people pledged to share the gospel with the world after Daniel R. Jackson, president of the Adventist Church in North America, urged them to complete the church’s mission in their generation.

“God did not choose my generation to finish the work on this planet. He has called your generation,” Jackson told an audience of 1,000 young people at the conclusion of the three-day Just Claim It prayer conference in Ontario, California.

“You will finish the work reaching the lost,” he said on Sabbath, Feb. 20. “Jesus is coming soon, and He is calling you. Your church needs you. The church wants you. This work will be finished by your generation.”

Jackson thanked the more than 80 young people who had volunteered to lead small study groups each day of the conference, which was themed, “The World Changers.” He asked them to join him on stage for a prayer of dedication. Turning to the audience before his prayer, he asked them to stand and dedicate their lives to serving Jesus and sharing Him with others.

The young people, who came to the conference from across the North American Division, stood as they made the promise.

The conference, organized by the North American Division’s youth department, was packed with prayer sessions, spiritual meetings, and recreational activities. Attendees took time out on Friday to assemble 1,000 toiletry kits filled with soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and other essentials for distribution at homeless shelters in the nearby Los Angeles area.

Read: Adventist Young People Prepare Toiletry Kits for Los Angeles Homeless

This Just Claim It conference, held every two years, was the fifth sponsored by the North American Division. The next conference will be held in Toronto, Canada, in early 2018.

Sabbath’s prayer of dedication followed a special time of prayer on Friday evening. At the end of the evening program, Armando Miranda Jr., associate youth director for the North American Division, invited attending pastors and youth leaders up onto the stage for a prayer of dedication for their service to the young people in their churches. Hundreds of attendees then followed the pastors to the conference’s Gethsemane prayer room, where each pastor spent several minutes with each young person, praying for their personal requests and anointing them if requested.

Jackson, in his remarks on Sabbath, told the story of the first time he built a house and the tensions that arose when the building inspector advised him that he might have built it on the wrong property. The potential conflict ended when Jackson told the inspector who had laid the foundation. The builder had a reputation of never making mistakes.

“We need to have a foundation built on Jesus,” Jackson said. “He must be in the middle of everything we share or do.”