Our Teen Challenge of Greater Cleveland students, Sunday, March 27, 2005. There were 63 students in the program.
JESUS is the Answer!
So what’s the problem?
In Teen Challenge it’s called a “life-controlling problem.” What is that? Almost anything can be: pride, food, power, sex, love of money, drugs, alcohol, sports, depression, gambling, fame, fear... anything that masters our lives.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “I will not be mastered by anything.” Yet people, Christians and non-Christians, struggle with seemingly unbeatable problems in their lives every day. Just watch the evening news.
Alcoholism has become the second most common "illness" in the United States, surpassing cancer and exceeded only by heart disease. Heroin use has greatly increased in recent years and, along with Fentanyl, is taking a terrible toll in lives lost to overdose. Research indicates that pornography, a multi-billion dollar industry, is also progressive and addictive. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds in the USA, surpassed only by accidents and homicide (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). One study (Dallas Morning News) indicates that “feeling all alone” is the number one reason.
These are some of the more obvious life-controlling problems, but other life-controlling problems often lie hidden beneath the surface, perhaps not as apparent as drugs and alcohol, but just as devastating. That is why anyone can be affected: people in our own neighborhood, church, or home.
Most of these people feel like they are facing their problems alone. Even though they are surrounded by friends and family members who may really care about them, it seems that no one knows how to help. There doesn’t seem to be anyone who can break them out of the seemingly hopeless trap they are in.
Teen Challenge offers a solution: put your trust in the once-crucified-and-resurrected and now-and-forever-living Jesus Christ!
— Rev. Murray N. Brown, Jr., Executive Director