How do we reach the next generation with the good news of Jesus Christ? How do we really reach the next generation? It's almost become cliche.
Like, everyone says they want to do it, Sean Dunn. But it may not be as easy as it sounds, but God's opened some doors for you. Y'all are hitting millions of people of these kids who, they won't go to church, but they're walking around with their face in the screen. Some call it the truth.
Some call them screen-agers. What say you? Yeah.
You know, it's the greatest opportunity our nation's ever known. I mean, people are more open to the gospel right now than they've ever been before. And if you want proof, look at Mark 9, 35 to 38. In Mark 9, 35 to 38, Jesus said, they're harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. And when you look at our culture, people are harassed and helpless. They don't know who to trust. The very next thing he said is, in that moment, the harvest is right.
It's lessy than it's ever been. Jesus is more attractive to them. And so if you figure out the right way to approach them, they're very open to hearing about the Jesus that brings them peace, hope, joy, meets every need that they have, but also the Jesus that saves.
Wow. I woke up with tears in my eyes because I made the mistake of watching the Bethany video that you guys have sent out all over the world. Young girl, end of her life, just struggling.
And she's young, but she's like, no meaning, no purpose. And someone reached out. Someone, through your amazing ministry, jesuscares.com, right there. I got the card. We passed these out.
We shared it with our server right there in that restaurant. We're in a loud place. We're so glad to have you in Winston-Salem.
And I'm just so glad to grab you real quick. Talk about that video, just like the impact of that on young people that are searching, that are hopeless. This whole generation, they're worried about likes and they're falling into some deep stuff.
Yeah. You know, Bethany is a great example of the generation as a whole, because she was broken. She was lost. She was trying to figure it out on her own.
She didn't know where to turn. The younger generations believe in God. A lot of people say that they don't. They're atheists. No, very small percentage. Only 7% of millennials and 13% of Gen Z are atheists, don't believe in God.
Most believe in God, but they don't do anything about it. So if you share with them, Jesus, so she was living her life and we found her on Instagram and we used the message just simply showed a picture of someone that looked like her, that felt like her. And it just said, when life hurts, Jesus cares.
Chat with someone who understands they know that life hurts. They want to strongly believe that somebody cares. And then we invited them into a conversation. And so she logged in and she was instantly connected to a woman who just listened to her story and listened to her pain and then began to speak Jesus into it. And she was just caught off guard because God is so attractive. Jesus is so loving and compassionate that when he's truly lifted up, he draws people to himself. I realize I'm misquoting that scripture because that scripture actually talks about when Jesus goes to the cross, he'll draw people to himself.
But when we lift up Jesus and we say, this is really who he is, people in culture are just so attracted to him. So they began this through a conversation. She, she said, yeah, I'd like to give my life to Christ. And she said, okay, I'm gonna let you pray. And she said, I don't know how. Now that blows us away because if you're listening to this right now, chances are you have some understanding that there's a God in heaven who wants to be a part of your life. Most young people don't believe that they don't know how. So the, the online volunteer taught her how to actually talk to God, like she's talking to someone who truly cares.
She ended up giving her life to Christ, transformed her, changed her completely. Wow. And you really encouraged us this morning. You spoke to our new Canine Society group.
You really lifted us up, but you challenged us. I mean, you asked a bunch of men like me, raise your hand if you're on certain social media and very few hands went up, but all of our kids are on it. We're like, oh, those screenagers, take that away. That's the problem with the world. But rather than just decry and bemoan and be upset with all these kids, you know, going to Hades in a hand basket, Sean Dunn, you're doing something about it at groundwire.net.
Tell us real quick your passion and give us some hope and give us some encouragement. Yeah, well, I wake up every day saying, how do we interrupt people's lives? We don't invite them because they can say I'm not interested. How do we interrupt them? How do we show up where they're spending their time wasting their day, where they're trying to escape? And how do we introduce them to Jesus who meets every need that they crave? They're looking for someone to affirm them. They're looking for peace that passes all understanding, joy that's indescribable, hope that doesn't disappoint. And we know that comes from God, but they're not going to go searching for it.
The actual there's an interesting word that the Urban Dictionary created. So they were talking about spirituality in our nation. And they say that the majority of people aren't. Well, it said that that in our nation, there's atheists don't believe in God. There's Christians, monotheists who believe there's a God and that love Jesus, love church.
It's where they find their identity and their tribe. But they said the majority of young people in our nation, they call them apotheists. The Urban Dictionary created a word and apotheist is defined in the Urban Dictionary as a young person who believes in God, but ignores him. So we figured out how to go after people that believe in God, but don't know how to reach out for him. And so that's that's what we're doing. And we are seeing literally thousands of people every day reach out to our online volunteers and say, hey, let's talk through websites like I feel broken dot com through websites like do I matter websites like what's the point? And through Jesus cares dot com. And, you know, I'm looking at this sheet right here, which is mind boggling.
But five million just just to date, you know, just the last part of a year or whatever. Five million five hundred twelve million one hundred twenty six thousand five hundred sixty interruptions, which led to web visits, which led to professions of faith. You have counselors right now standing by to talk to young people who are. Life is falling apart. If you're listening right now, you just happened upon this podcast broadcast.
You maybe you're listening to the station that your parents left on, or maybe you turn the station on for your parents to hear whatever. There's a there's hope right now. You're inviting people to come right now. And it's got to be. So to receive Christ at your websites and all that, Sean, it's got to be like one hundred bucks a head to pay to receive Christ. Right. I mean, it's got to be expensive. Well, we don't charge people to receive Christ, but it's eternal life. You got to put a fee on there.
Yeah. No, what's what you're referencing is we've taken our costs and we've broken it down to the number of people that God's bringing to a place where they say, hey, I recognize that I'm a sinner, that I need Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. I can't pay the price. So those people that have prayed to receive Christ and these numbers have been validated in the first six months of this year. By the way, churches and denominations will tell you that it costs over thirty five thousand dollars domestically to see one person give their life to Christ.
In the first six months of this year, our all in cost was four dollars and thirty six cents. Don't tell the stat of how many people the average church brings to Christ every year. Don't tell them that it's only one, according to George Barna. Wow. So we got to get busy. But, you know, it's interesting. You threw some stuff out at us this morning when you spoke at a New Cane Society and you're kind of come on this quick podcast.
You're buzzing and zooming around. But Sean Dunn, honestly, you are not trying to shame people. You're not shaming other ministries that are doing it differently. Your message is so positive. And I'd love for you to, as we take away here real quick, to leave our listeners with a way they can get involved with you. The way they can right now reach their kids, their grandkids, their burden. But they feel like there's this block and it's like the kids in the phone, the nose is in the phone and they're trying to talk to them. Yeah. You know, I do a whole lot of training on that and you're asking me to do it in 12 seconds.
Thank you for that. You know, I just we teach our coaches an acronym that that really works, which is listen, empathize, transition and share. We teach our volunteers that if you listen to them, they'll listen to you. We teach them to empathize and acknowledge that life is hard. You know, my dad was from the suck it up generation. Well, when you tell a young person to suck it up, they stop listening to you. So you listen, you say, man, that's hard.
I can't imagine. And then you transition and then you share. What we found is that a lot of people love to be empathetic. They listen and they empathize, but they don't know how to transition.
So they never get to say, you know, I hear your story and man, it just seems like what you're really looking for is Jesus. Can we talk about that? It seems like what you're really looking for is peace.
Can I tell you where you found where I found peace? When you transition, then you get to share. So some people need to be taught to transition. Whereas men, most of us, unfortunately, we would rather talk than listen. So men just want to share. Men, we need to slow down, ask questions. There's a difference between looking somebody in the eyes, whether it's your grandkid or whether it's your server. There's a difference between looking them in the eyes and say, you need Jesus and say, you know, after hearing a little bit about what's going on, I really think what you're looking for is Jesus. There's a big difference there. So men, we need to slow down, listen, empathize so we can transition and share so that they start listening to the truth that we know that has changed us.
But they're tending to avoid. I love it. And that's in our own home with our own kids and relatives and family and friends and their friends and their roommates and their...
I'm getting to know all kinds of kids, my nephews, teammates, and it's just kind of interesting just to be their friend and listen. And so I love this. This is your Ground Wire report. Your mission, Ground Wire exists to lead youth and young adults into a personal relationship with Jesus by leveraging current media channels to connect with them wherever they are. And I love this vision statement. Sean, thank you for inspiring me, brother. Ground Wire's vision is to see every young person place their trust in Christ.
Why that vision and where are you going and how can we pray for you? Well, the reason is, number one, he wants all men to come to acknowledge the truth and be saved. Jesus said in John 4.35, he said, open your eyes and look at the harvest. It's ripe. I mean, there was an urgency there. He was basically saying, stop saying it's coming.
Realize it's now. People are more open to the gospel right now than they've ever been. And so we need to open our eyes.
I believe that Jesus, if he was here, he'd visit the church and say, open your eyes and look, people are more open to the gospel right now than they've ever been before. And so we get to take that. We get to be a part of his mission. We get to take that message to them. And it's transformational. It changes everything that happens in somebody's life.
So keep after it. You know, one of my statements and you referenced it when we were just grabbing a quick bite is life is too short to waste and eternity is too long to ignore. I believe that if we as believers really understood the concept of eternity, if we really understood that people either suffer through eternity or celebrate through it, those are the only two options. Every person that you know will either suffer through eternity or celebrate through it. And the one thing that makes the difference is Jesus. If we really believed that, we would be intentionally and prayerful about looking for opportunities to share Jesus with them. That's what gets us going. That's why I do what I do, because God is on the throne and he's calling people home and we have been entrusted with that message of reconciliation.
We get to tell people that they can be reconciled to God, that they can have a personal relationship with the creator of the universe. Thank you, Sean Dunn, for your work with GroundWire, for your encouraging us today. Real quick, let's land the plane with a landing page. Give us the best way for folks to reach out, to get your resources, to train, and to train the next generation on how to reach the next generation. Right.
So groundwire.net is the best website. That's the brochure of who we are. If you want to see what young people see, go to jesuscares.com.
That's an easy one to remember. But also, just for the listeners, one of our strengths is we have 24 hours a day, we have volunteers in both Spanish and English that are talking to these kids. We need more people. If you'd like to be trained and be a part of that, log in there. Or I'm going to give you my personal email address, because I have some tools that I've created that I'd love to send you digitally for free, just to help you understand some of the ways that we train our coaches, some of the conversations, some of the great questions we ask. If you send me an email at sdone, D-U-N-N, sdone at groundwire.net, I would love to send you just that 28-page resource that we just released that will walk you through that acronym we just talked about and several of the other tools that we have.
