My journey with Advance started with a surprising invitation.
I was asked to join one of the first Advance Groups in Cape Town by Shaun Pretorius, a guy whom I admired from a distance (to me he was kind of like a Christian celebrity, being a host on a well-known radio station in western South Africa, and manager of my favourite gospel group Kinetic IV).
I went along, and after just a few weeks I could see that I was growing and maturing in my relationship with Jesus. During this time, I developed so much in my understanding of who I am and how I should live following Jesus, and was challenged about the type of discipline, dedication, and devotion that I needed to apply to myself, not only as an evangelist, but as someone who has been given the responsibility to go and make disciples in every nation.
As I pressed into the Advance resources and explored more about my faith, I felt compelled to share the gospel with others, completely desperate to share the good news of Jesus with those around me.
So with this in mind, I thought about where I could start, and as I was part of a dynamic youth ministry, which is all about equipping young people for life and kingdom work, I decided to introduce Advance there.
I gathered the leaders of this youth ministry, and we began going through the Advance material together – and we had the best times in these sessions. The content was so intriguing that it sparked amazing conversations around evangelism, the Bible, lifestyles, personalities, approaches to ministry and so many other areas of life. We even found as we met up and sharpened each other in faith through the group, that we grew closer together in our friendship.
Recently we’ve started the Advance material with our youth as well as the leaders, using it to equip them for ministry, encourage them for mission and empower them in their local evangelism. Already, we have over 40 young people coming along to the sessions, and it has been such a joy to see them so engaged in the content, and eager to learn and grow in their faith.
We decided to give them homework after the first session, and they came back so eager to share what they had learned! I’m so looking forward to what God is going to do as we continue to delve deeper into the Advance material together.
Written by Enrico, one of the Advance group leaders in Cape Town.
