President & Founder, Teen Mania Ministries
Host of Acquire the Fire youth events across the nation with more than 3 million attendees to date
Featured as a teen culture expert on CNN’s God Warriors, ABC’s Nightline, NBC, The O’Reilly Factor
MA, Counseling/Psychology, University of Tulsa
BA, Psychology, ORU
Married to Katie, 25 years
Children:3 teen and young-adult children
GUEST
Ron Luce on Praying for Our Teens
By
The 700 Club
Air Date: April 26, 2011
CBN.com
– TEEN MANIA Ron Luce was raised by his mother in a broken home. He ran away when he was fifteen and started using drugs and alcohol, but about a year later, he says Jesus changed his life in a big way. His friend took him to church and the pastor’s words seemed to come alive and make sense to Ron. “Since then, He has inspired and compelled me to love people the way He loves them, and I’ve realized that the whole point of my life is to point a younger generation towards Him!” Ron says of his relationship with Christ.
Ron is the co-founder and president of Teen Mania Ministries, located in Garden Valley, Texas. Ron and his wife Katie founded Teen Mania in 1986. The ministry has expanded greatly and has become influential within today’s Christian youth culture. Every year, Teen Mania partners with thousands of churches and hundreds of thousands of teens from across the country through their Acquire The Fire youth events. They also send thousands of teens on missions all over the world through their organization, Global Expeditions. Additionally, every year, hundreds of teens come to their campus in Garden Valley, TX for a year long internship at The Honor Academy, where they learn about leadership and character development and get to be a part of reaching their generation for Christ.
In addition to his work with teens, Ron has gained further experience with young people as a father. Ron and Katie have two college-age daughters who are a year and a half apart: Hannah and Charity. They also have a teenage son, Cameron. Ron believes his life is a testimony for what God can do. “When God gives a dream and the tools to pull it off, He will bless it!” Ron says. “I didn’t want to start a ministry; I just wanted to preach and get young people saved and go on mission trips around the world. I couldn’t have done any of this on my own so all the glory and repute and kudos and everything go to Him.”
PRAYING FOR TEENS Ron urges adults in the church and parents of teens to be in constant prayer for young people. “It’s not like when you were a kid,” he says about growing up in today’s world. He cites technological advances as one of the biggest threats to teens. He says when most parents were teens, they only had three television channels, but today, teens have hundreds of channels with very little censorship from television providers or parents. And television is just one avenue from which teens receive information. Internet, music, video games and cell phones can become pipelines of information to teens, and parents must be aware about what is coming out of each of those pipelines. He says studies have shown that parents are the number one spiritual influences on their children, so their role is vital in the spiritual growth of teens.
Parents aren’t the only ones who should be praying for teens. Adults in the church, even those without children, need to pray. Ron says that a majority of teens who attend church regularly aren’t devoted followers of
Christ. Instead, their core beliefs are that God is out there, it’s good to be kind, their main goal in life should be to be happy, and good people go to Heaven. Ron says the church as a whole needs to do a better job raising up true believers whose hearts are turned to their Heavenly Father. Everyone should be praying for parents to engage with their children, and also for the pastors, particularly the youth-pastors at their church.
SHARING GOD WITH THE WORLD While teens today may be faced with more challenges than generations before, they also have new and exciting opportunities. Teen Mania’s mission organization, Global Expeditions, is equipping teens to share the gospel and sending them out into the world. Ron says these trips wake up destiny for many of the participants. A lesson many teens learn while leading others to Christ is, “If God can do this with me when I’m fourteen, what can he do with the rest of my life?” Ron says.
Global Expeditions has planned special trips to the Philippines and Peru where participants can join with CBN's Operation Blessing in ministry opportunities.
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