Continued from Vintage Saints: Young Guns, Part 1. Throughout church history God has chosen to use young people for significant kingdom work. The following are a few more examples that have greatly encouraged me, and I pray they do likewise for you.

D.L. Moody

D.L. Moody was one of the greatest evangelists in the history of America. His legacy today includes the renowned Moody Church, Moody Bible Institute, and Moody Publishers. Moody began his ministry with a ragtag group of rowdy young boys who had been kicked out of other Sunday school classes. Before becoming a pastor, Moody was denied church membership because he failed the oral doctrine exam. During his life he traveled one million miles and preached to over one hundred million people. At the Chicago World’s Fair he preached to 130,000 people in one day. Moody began his life of ministry at the young age of twenty-one and went into full time ministry at the age of twenty-four.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of the most well-known pastors of the 20th century. He opposed the Nazi church in Germany and built an underground seminary to train pastors to remain faithful to Jesus Christ and not bend their knees to Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis in 1945 at the age of thirty-nine after writing, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die.” Bonhoeffer began his life of ministry at the young age of twenty-five.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Charles Haddon Spurgeon is among the finest preachers in the history of the church, though he was not formally educated for the task. He pastored the world’s first megachurch, where thousands would come to hear him preach the gospel upwards of ten times a week. Over 100,000 people attended his funeral. Spurgeon took his first pulpit at the young age of nineteen.

Billy Graham

Billy Graham is easily the most influential Protestant Christian leader of the 20th century and for me personally one of the most inspiring men who has ever lived. Graham has preached the gospel to more people in live audiences than anyone else in history—over 210 million people in more than 185 countries and territories. Hundreds of millions more have been reached through television, video, film, and webcasts. Graham began publicly preaching the gospel at the young age of nineteen.

Various Revivals

In addition to God working miraculously through the young, he is also prone to work miraculously on the young. Three revivals in particular primarily affected young people. The college student revivals under Jonathan Edward’s grandson, Timothy Dwight, brought many young Christians into church leadership. The Second Great Awakening (1776-1810) was largely fueled by college revivals. The Puritans in Britain were often scoffed at for being “merely children” because so many of them were in their early and mid twenties. Lastly, the great Scottish revival is reported to have been mainly young people, as a reported 60 percent of the mass conversions were among people between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five.