Dreaming Big For God

by Shawn Niles

You know, it's one thing to ask your students to dream big for God. It's another thing when they actually start doing it.

Last year, I was sitting with some key student leaders in a circle at our campsite during Creation. I said "guys, this year, I want you to dream big. Dream SO big that we won't be able to accomplish the dream unless God steps in."

Sometimes, as a youth pastor, I have great ideas that I don't always think through. I didn't realize that some of them were already dreaming big, and I was in for the ride of my life.

It started when one of my students, Brad, came up to me shortly after that circle talk and said "Hey, your wife and I had a great idea!"

"What are you doing dreaming with my wife?" I didn't say that, but I thought it. Instead, I said, "What's the dream Brad?"

"Well, what if we held an event to reach people who might never come to church?"

"Sounds great!"

"And what if we had Christian music, and Christian speakers?"

"Sweet!"

"And what if we raised money to fight human trafficking?"

"Okay, that could definitely take some time and work!"

"What if it was a cage fighting event?"

My eyes got wide, and my mouth was hanging down to my socks. As you can imagine, my youth pastor job and my love of MMA and cage fighting don't always mix. My response was weak; "Dude, that's cool, but how in the world would we make that happen?"

His response was crippling: "Shawn, you just asked us to dream dreams that were bigger than us."

Although I felt about two inches tall, I answered, "You're right. Let's start praying and researching." Which is what we did.

I had no idea where to start with this. I was telling everyone about this great idea, asking for input, and hearing a lot of great feedback. Finally, someone said, "Shawn, go talk to Rich and Julie Guerin, the owners of Yakima (Washington) MMA (read about MMA here). They do live events here in town once in awhile."

I agreed, and headed down to their gym, fully expecting to get laughed at for the silly idea of combining cage fighting and ministry. I walked through the doors and met Jule Guerin. Stumbling over myself, feeling lik a nerd in the locker room, I told her briefly about this idea of a cage fighting event mixed with ministry and doing something about human trafficking. Her eyes lit up as she replied, "Shawn, Rich and I are Christ followers; we go to Breaktrhough Christian Center. This is a great idea; let's talk more!"

We sat down a week later at Starbucks, where I met Rich Guerin for the first time. This huge dude, cauliflower ears and all, along with his wife Julie, sat down with my wife Tenielle and me, and dreamt about a big cage fighting event, unlike any other. It would be an event where incredible athletes would beat each other up, where the gospel would be preached, where Christian music would fill the atmosphere and money could be raised for human trafficking victims.

As I told Rich and Julie about human trafficking, its worldwide effects, and even its local effects, tears filled Julie's eyes. Her words will never leave me: "Shawn, I would do anything to protect my daughter. I want to protect other daughters."

That was last fall. As I write this, we are two weeks away from the first ever "Hits For The Helpless." In the last 9 ½ months, we've seen God open some incredible doors. I had the opportunity to speak with an MMA legend, Matt "The Law" Lindland, who is also a Christ follower. I asked if he'd be willing to come speak at the event and sign autographs, and his response was "I've been praying for the opportunity to fight human trafficking. I believe this is my answer."

Although not a star in the MMA world, The Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase of WWE fame, was quick to want to help out as well, and signed on to become our main speaker, and the one who will present the gospel to our crowd. Miesha "Takedown" Tate, who will fight for the Strikeforce women's world championship three weeks after the event, came on board as well. As one of the top five women fighters in the world, we were and are humbled to have her presence.

And then there are the fights. Between 12-14 fights will take place on that evening, and all the fighters know and are excited about fighting for the human trafficking cause. It's an event we could have never dreamt possible.

But then again, we asked God to give us dreams bigger than us. And that's what He did.

Editor’s note: We wanted to report the results of Hits For The Helpless. Shawn shared that between 500-600 people attended, and more than $1,000 was raised to combat trafficking. Three of the competitors in the event prayed to receive Christ! As more details come in, they will be reported at www.hitsforthehelpless.com. And if your dream is similar to Shawn’s, he is glad to talk to you. Contact him at RevShawnNiles@aol.com.