SPRINGFIELD – Greg Stier’s family is the last group of people one might expect to produce a passionate witness for Christ. They were “thugs,” in and out of jail, and so rough and tumble that even local mafia called his uncles, “the Crazy Brothers.” And yet one day, on a dare, a hillbilly preacher dressed up in a suit knocked on one of the Crazy Brothers’ doors.
That dare not only led to the Crazy Brother’s salvation, it led to a spiritual revolution in the entire family, including Greg Stier. It later inspired his ministry and his Oct. 24th message during the Missouri Baptist Convention annual meeting here.
A former pastor and church planter, Stier is focused on training, equipping and mobilizing younger generations with the gospel. The ministry he founded, Dare 2 Share Ministries, has been helping the church activate Christian teenagers to reach their friends for more than 20 years.
His sermon was based out of Matthew 9:35-38: “Then Jesus went to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness. When He saw the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were weary and worn out, like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’”
Stier pulled out five keys from that passage and applied them to “catching Jesus’ vision” for Gen Z, the largest generation in the history of the world: seeing them in their need, feeling compassion for them, visualizing their lostness, begging the Lord for the lost to be saved, and for the saved to be sent, and, finally, to act.
“Jesus didn’t just talk about it,” he said, “Jesus did it. He set the pace and cast the vision. Pastors, are you setting the pace with your church? Youth leaders, are you setting the pace for your students? Adults, are you setting the pace for your kids and grandkids? Set the pace. Cast the vision.”