The Holy Spirit has been moving among Australia’s younger generations according to Pat Steele who’s director of the Hope Movement that comes under the banner of Youth for Christ.
He’s been working on a documentary series called Made In Jesus, filming young people sharing the gospel and even signs and wonders as Youth For Christ teams engage with teenagers in schools and on the streets.
Pat Steele told Vision Radio: “It’s just such a privilege to be able to travel around Australia and see what God is doing through every generation, but particularly working with Youth for Christ, seeing what God is doing through the young people in Australia. I really see that there’s a generation of righteous radicals rising up in our nation who are just set apart and set ablaze for the glory of God. They’re not waiting for a move of God because they are the move of God.”
“We’ve been on this Holy Spirit adventure. We went to a Gold Coast school and in their chapel service we actually saw 260 young people respond to Jesus. Then the power of God started moving and they sort of didn’t want to go to morning tea or lunch. They just stuck around. There were testimonies being shared and there was spontaneous worship happening in the school. Over the next couple of weeks more than 600 young people gave their lives to Jesus in this school.”
“All around Australia we’re seeing God move powerfully. I went to Melbourne where we saw almost 100 baptisms. In Sydney, we’re seeing revival in the streets. We’ve been going to Sydney Town Hall for a bit over a year now, every single Friday night consistently with a team called Sydney Fire Evangelists where I’ve been joined by other evangelists,” Mr. Steele revealed.
“Some weeks we’ve even had up to 200 Christians come along to worship and to preach the gospel. And we’ve seen over 700 salvations on Friday nights in Sydney and a lot of baptisms as well. We’ve been organising mass baptisms because obviously all these people who are getting saved, they need to be baptised and they need to be disciples. So we’re doing discipleship groups.”
“We’re seeing it everywhere we go around Australia. It makes me think of the prophecy by Smith Wigglesworth where he said Australia, you have been chosen by God for a great move of the Holy Spirit. He goes on to say it’ll happen at the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century. And that’s us. That’s now! Like it’s not going to be 100 years from now. It’s now. It’s revival,” Pat Steele proclaimed.
“Everywhere that I go, I have the privilege of just seeing God moving powerfully through young believers who are just putting up their hand and saying: I’ll go. I’ll be obedient to what the Holy Spirit’s asking me to do today. It’s nothing special. A lot of it’s not from platforms or even with microphones. It’s just a lot of one-on-one evangelism and a lot of just believers saying Yes to Jesus and his Great Commission to go out and make disciples. And it’s exciting. I honestly believe that it’s just the beginning. I’m excited to see what God’s going to do next.”
Youth For Christ team leader Bas Rodwell told Vision Radio how the Lord led his team to the indigenous community of Roeburne in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
“We had the honour and privilege of seeing the Lord move in power and in love. We saw a lot of amazing things happen when we were there. We were getting words of knowledge for people. We were seeing people get touched by the power and presence of God, even prophesying over people where people would say things and they would just begin to cry and be like: Oh My Gosh.”
“We can’t know what’s going on in someone else’s life, but He does and He just wants to flow through us. So we saw people getting baptised, the indigenous people getting baptised, giving their lives to Jesus and saying: No, I don’t want this world anymore. I don’t want brokenness. But this town in particular, even the surrounding area, is a very broken town. It’s the kind of town where they say in Western Australia: Don’t stop there for fuel or anything, Just keep your windows up and drive through it. Like a lot of crime, a lot of violence, a lot of hurt and pain in this town. So that’s where we want to go. The Lord led us there. And it was honestly such a joy and such pleasure to bring the fullness of Jesus and his restorative love and power into that town and see him do a lot of mighty works.”
Bas Rodwell explained there was a massive move of God in the town around 50 years ago, but that diminished over time. The legacy was that many locals had heard about Jesus and the Youth For Christ team’s mission was to give them a real encounter with Jesus and the love of God.
“There’s a small church in the town and there’s also a group of believers who gather in the park and they’ve been separated for a while. While we were there, we were connecting with both groups and for the first time in over seven years, the park group actually went to church and joined the church service. Seeing that unity that God brought was one of my favourite things,” the team leader celebrated.
“That same night we did an outreach in the park, but despite being a very small town, we had 80 people come, even from neighbouring towns, and it was just amazing to see all these people in the same place. Locals hadn’t seen one of the groups that attended for more than two years. So it just warmed my heart seeing God move and bring unity in the town.”
Youth For Christ has missionaries all around Australia including a Darwin team that specialises in the juvenile justice system. Some groups are more street-focused while others are more school-focused. Pat Steele observes there’s a different flavour to every team.
Click below to listen to the interview with Youth For Christ’s Pat Steele and Bas Roswell
