When GYC began in 2002, no one really knew where the fledgling movement would go. I was only 11 at the time, living in the mountains of western New Mexico with my family: I knew none of the young people starting the movement. Twelve years later GYC has grown tremendously, and young people who were mere children when it began are leading it. What keeps a movement fresh and wins the involvement of youth more than a decade later?

The answer is simple. GYC has a mission—a mission that can never grow old, wear out, or come to nothing. For the love of Christ, we want the gospel of Christ planted squarely back in the middle of our hearts, until everything we do is for the sake of Christ. Then, motivated by the passion of Christ, we are to go into the highways and hedges and pour ourselves out for a planet in agony.

Our goal is for Christ to take over our lives in entirety; to be the center of our existence. Why should we keep the Sabbath? Because of Jesus. Why should we read the Word of God, remain in the church, pursue a healthy lifestyle, share a tract with our neighbor next door? Why should we relinquish a life of comfortable conventionality and materialism to live a life of sacrifice? There’s only one right answer: Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Any answer other than Jesus is meaningless.

Then, for His sake, young people have a mission to care about all that His heart cares about. As long as 1.5 million children per year die of starvation, we have a mission. As long as there are 27 million slaves in the world, most of them sold into sex trafficking so that purity can be bartered off to abusers, we have a mission. As long as there are children being hunted and beaten for sport in the streets, or there is one person on one remote island who has not heard the beautiful name of Jesus, we have a mission.

That’s our desire. If GYC as an organization came to an end, the movement would continue. Though the hearts of young people in the twenty-first century are contested ground, God will never lose His grip on them. The organization is of little consequence, but the God we serve is everything. As long as He lives, we have a mission and a purpose.

Last time we checked, that’s forever.