There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.
(Eccl. 3:1)

Isn’t it interesting that God put practical things in motion that give us real life lessons. We  experience seasons in our life, and the nature of seasons is things change.

People who live in areas where seasons don’t change get bored. Think about it – you’ve got “hot” and “hotter,” or “cold” and “colder.”  You don’t get to see the color changes of the fall, or the lush greenery of spring if the seasons never change.

There are seasons of life that we have. There was a season where you were a small child. Then you grew up and became an adult. Then came the season of marriage came, and then kids and once you have kids, you forget there even was a season without them. Then there’s a season where they leave, and oh is it good! You can actually go out to dinner instead of having Ramen every night.

There are also seasons in ministries. If you study virtually any ministry – Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, the Salvation Army – you’ll see seasons of change. Billy Graham, for example, started out preaching every weekend at Youth for Christ rallies. Then he had a radio program that was broadcast to auditoriums filled with teenagers. Then he shifted out of that and began talking to adults. Then he went all over the world, and then had a TV ministry. Every season requires a risk, taking a chance and hearing from God.

During each season of ministry or life, there’s something important that must be done during that season. It can’t be done during the next season – it has to be done now. There are lives that need to be changed today.

There’s a season in your life to go to college. If you don’t go to college during that time, you’ll probably never go. There are certain seasons where you plant, and if you don’t, nothing is going to grow.

Sometimes, in longing for the next season you miss what you could get out of the current season. Some people long so much to be married that they miss out what they can only be doing in their single life. They’re always thinking about the next season. Its important to live in the moment!  Experience all life has to offer while you are in your current season!

It’s important to finish this season well. If you watch a track meet, you’ll notice the passing of the baton is such a delicate thing. In the passing, the baton can juggle between hands and slow you down. Or, it can be so well-rehearsed and graceful that the pass off happens and the runner takes right off. That’s what we’re aiming for here – a graceful baton pass.

Let’s run in such a way that we can look back and say we did it with the grace of God. What a handoff!

Now some answers to questions that have come up from alumni, staff and others who care about the future of Teen Mania:
We want to take as many of the hearts of the alumni, parents, youth pastors, missionaries and staff with us as possible. These people have poured their hearts out here, and we want to honor that. We want to make sure you know the truth of what’s going on and where our future is going so we all have faith together and strive forward together.

Are all of the Teen Mania programs moving forward?
For the most part, all programs are transferring. The only difference would be, over next few months, rethinking how we’re doing what we’re doing. We don’t have any intention at this point of deleting any programs. We just want to find ways to make them better.

Is Teen Mania involved in legal proceedings?
A couple of vendors have threatened that to sue because they thought we were never going to pay. But it’s not the case, and our attorneys are talking.  No vendors have actually filed suit.

Is there going to be an alumni reunion?
We are hoping to plan a giant reunion for alumni, interns and former staff sometime before we move. We want to celebrate and honor those memories that were made at this beautiful campus.  Please let us know if you would be interested in coming if we do plan one.

What date are we leaving?
The answer is, I don’t know exactly when. Within the next eight weeks, we expect to have a solid plan for that. The reason we even made the announcement of our move this week is so we could communicate what’s going on before rumors started to swirl about what’s really going on.

Now that we have no bank debt, are we making a commitment to never go into debt again as stated in Proverbs 22:7?
I love Dave Ramsey, but I feel like there are some times when it’s wise to leverage debt. But other times it’s not – for example, never buy a new car. However it might be wise to borrow money for other things. I can tell you this, between myself and the board of directors, we will be very scrupulous to make a good case for it if the time comes.

Do we have to liquidate our assets?
We want to be clear, we are the ones who initiated the action with the bank. There will be no foreclosure proceedings – it’s a transaction. We signed the paper, they signed the paper and it’s a done deal. This is amicable, and we don’t have to liquidate all of our assets. We are getting rid of our debt, and it’s an awesome blessing.

There were a series of miracles that happened to get us to this place. I went to the meeting with the bank and took with me a businessman who’s been in meetings like this hundreds of times with companies over 30-40 years. When we got out of the meeting with the bank, he said what happened in the meeting was a miracle. He’s been in deals where it’s taken two years and dozens of meetings just to get where we got with one meeting.

It usually takes hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees. We spent no money and had one meeting. Really, the grace of the Lord can be felt all over this.

The good news is that this move to Dallas sets us up to focus on the vision that has been burning in us form the beginning to impact people around the world with the gospel.  Now that there is literally  “Global youth culture” we have the opportunity to make impact on  so many more lives by leveraging all we have learned about reaching American teens for all these years.  We hope that many alumni will join us (either in prayer or coming in person) to spread the Gospel all over the world by helping conduct Acquire the Fire events globally and helping to start Honor Academy campuses to train young adults all over the world to lead their generation!