Teens rally in Niagara Falls to affirm moral values
Speaker warns against having sex before being married
NIAGARA FALLS — One by one, the young men walked to the front of the exhibition hall in Conference Center Niagara Falls on Sunday to ask for forgiveness.
The teenage girls followed, some with tears in their eyes.
The spotlight focused on speaker Reggie Dabbs.
“You cannot change your past,” Dabbs told hundreds of teenagers who filled the room. “But you can change your future.”
There were no minced words for the youths gathered Sunday morning for the second day of Joshua Revolution’s four-day “Niagara ’08” Christian youth conference.
“Sex outside of marriage is a dirty, stinky, filthy, rotten sin,” abstinence speaker Pam Stenzel told the crowd. “Let’s be clear, because we’re living in the fluffy era of the church.”
Stenzel, founder of Enlighten Communications, brought a frank message to the teenagers gathered to worship and pray Sunday: Have sex before marriage and you open yourself up to sexually transmitted diseases and other consequences that could impact the rest of your life.
Stenzel worked for nine years counseling teenage girls in crisis pregnancies before deciding to travel the country to deliver a message of abstinence.
“For nine years, I would have girls in my office every day saying, ‘Pam, I didn’t know. . . . If someone would have told me,’ ” Stenzel said. “After nine years, I realized that there were a lot of teenagers out there making decisions about sex having absolutely no idea what the consequences would be.”
But, Stenzel told the teenagers, the choice is theirs.
“This morning you’re going to be told,” Stenzel said. “What you choose to do when you leave this conference, that’s up to you.”
Stenzel’s speech wrapped up an energetic morning of worship and prayer that had the teenagers clapping and swaying to Christian rock music and giggling at jokes.
More than 1,300 junior and senior high school students registered for the four-day conference run by the nondenominational Christian youth organization Joshua Revolution. Kim Carey, Joshua Revolution’s marketing assistant, said more youths were expected to buy tickets at the door.
The annual December conference offers speakers, small workshops and prayer aimed at teenagers and youth leaders throughout the region.
The conference returned to Niagara Falls last year after taking place in Buffalo and Rochester for six earlier years.
Daniel Clark, a 28-year-old youth leader from Buffalo, called Stenzel’s speech a “powerful message” for teens.
“I hope it stays with them all their life, that it can help them tell the Gospel to the lost ones, their friends, their family and their peers at school,” Clark said.
The morning session ended with music by the Christian rock band Isaiah Six as teenagers asked for forgiveness with tearful hugs and prayer.
“Come out of your seat,” said Isaiah Six lead singer Derek Levendusky. “Let somebody pray for you today.”
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments