From ‘Terrified, Nerdy Little Kid’ to Bold Evangelist

Greg Stier didn’t fit in with his family. He was a timid youth surrounded by uncles who were street fighters, bodybuilders, and boxers. Even the Mafia called them the “Crazy Brothers.” 

However, in an unlikely turn of events, God led Greg—and his family—out of darkness and called him into ministry. Today, Greg Stier is the founder of Dare 2 Share Ministries, an organization that equips teenagers to share the Gospel. Hear Greg’s transformational story and how Dare 2 Share was impacted by the Columbine High School shooting on this episode of GPS: God. People. Stories. 

Connect with us through email at gps@billygraham.org or on Facebook at Billy Graham Radio. 

Transcript

Greg Stier: 
00:00:01 The Denver Mafia had a nickname for my uncles. They called them the Crazy Brothers. So, when the Mafia thinks your family is dysfunctional, that’s not good. That’s bad.

Jim Kirkland: But Greg Stier didn’t fit in with the rest of his family. 

Greg: 
00:00:13 I was a terrified, nerdy little kid. I wasn’t tough. I was a scared, scarred, fatherless little kid. I had never met my biological father. My ma had met my father at a party. They partied; she got pregnant.

Jim: Today, Greg Stier is the founder of Dare 2 Share Ministries, an organization that equips teenagers to share the Gospel. You’ll hear Greg’s story and how Dare 2 Share was impacted by one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. It’s on all this episode of GPS: God. People. Stories., an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. I’m Jim Kirkland.

Like Greg, Billy Graham often encouraged people to be bold in their faith in Jesus Christ.

Billy Graham:
00:00:57 I am convinced that the greatest act of love we can ever perform for another person is to tell them that God’s love for them in Jesus Christ.

Jim: You’ll hear more from Billy Graham about sharing your faith later in this episode. You can find resources about sharing your faith at any time. Here’s the website to make note of: FindPeaceWithGod.net. FindPeaceWithGod.net. Once you’re there, click “Grow in Your Christian Faith.” That website again is FindPeaceWithGod.net.

Intro: GPS: God. People. Stories.

MUSIC TRANSITION

Greg:
00:01:38 I was raised in a violent family in the inner city. Three of my uncles are competitive bodybuilders and street fighters. The fourth one was a bouncer at the toughest bar in Denver, and the fifth one was a Golden Gloves boxer, judo champion, and war hero. And I was a terrified, nerdy little kid. 

Jim: Growing up in Denver, Greg Stier was surrounded by his mom’s five brothers. 

Greg:
00:02:00 My mom was the only girl in the group and, you know, they were all afraid of her because she used a baseball bat when she fought. So my family was very dangerous. The Denver Mafia had a nickname for my uncles. They called them the Crazy Brothers. So, when the Mafia thinks your family is dysfunctional, that’s not good. That’s bad.
 
Jim: Greg knew that his family was dysfunctional, but where could he go?

Greg:
00:02:22 I wasn’t tough. I was a scared, scarred, fatherless little kid. I had never met my biological father. My ma had met my father at a party. They partied; she got pregnant. 

Jim: Greg’s father was in the Army and after he got news about the pregnancy, he was transferred 2,000 miles away. Greg’s mom was wracked with guilt and she didn’t want to face her strict, religious parents, so she came up with a plan.

Greg:
00:02:48 She got in her car, drove from Denver to Boston to have an illegal abortion under the pretense of staying with my Uncle Tommy and Aunt Carol. They actually had become believers, and they talked her out of the abortion. So, she came back and, in guilt and shame, had me. And for years, I wondered growing up, why when she would look at me, oftentimes she would just burst out into tears. She felt shame in the deepest part of her soul because of her life and because of her choices and because she almost aborted me. 

Jim: But not only had Greg been saved physically as a baby, he would soon be saved spiritually as a little boy. 



Greg:
00:03:24 My grandparents, they had six kids, most of them very rebellious. One of them was my mom, and I think they felt really guilty, so they took me and my big brother to church, and it was there, at little Bethany Baptist Church, I heard the Gospel and put my faith in Christ.

Jim: At 8 years old, Greg came forward to be baptized. In response, the pastor asked him a few questions.

Greg:
00:03:46 He said, “Before you get baptized, you got to be a Christian. That means you believe that Jesus died for you on the cross, that you trust in Him alone, and that you are relying on what Jesus did on the cross to save you. Does that make sense? Have you done that?” And right in my mind, right there, I said, “I trust You, Jesus.”

Jim: Greg remembers the exact date and time of that decision: June 23, 1974, at 12 noon. 

Greg:
00:04:11 My grandma wrote that in my little red Bible, and I keep that Bible on my desk as a reminder of the day that everything changed for me because it was the same little red Bible that I used to read underneath the kitchen sink with a flashlight before my family came to Christ, before I came to Christ, to get away from the noise and the violence, because I knew the answers were in this Book.

Jim: After Greg trusted his life to Jesus Christ, he noticed an immediate change in his outlook.

Greg:
00:04:38 I knew for the first time I had a dad, a new dad, a Heavenly Father that would never leave me or forsake me, like he left my mom and me and forsook us.

Jim: Around that same time, the Lord started revealing Himself to Greg’s uncles, too ... and in some very unusual ways.

Greg:
00:04:56 A hillbilly preacher from the Deep South whose nickname was Yankee for whatever reason planted a church in the suburbs of Denver and went to his house on a Saturday morning, knocked on his door. My Uncle Jack came to the door, no shirt on, tattoos everywhere, talked like this, get two beer cans, one for drinking beer, one for spitting chew. He said, “What do you want?”

Jim: Yankee explained that he had been dared by a man named Bob Daley to tell Jack about Jesus.


Greg:
00:05:25 My Uncle Jack said, “Well, I don’t know Jesus. I know Bob. I’ll give you five minutes.” And Yankee sat down with my Uncle Jack and explained to him that God loved him, that sin separated us from God, that those sins could never be removed by good deeds, but by paying the price for sin on the cross, Jesus covered our debt. He died, He rose from the dead, and everyone who trust in Him alone has eternal life.

Jim: That was the first time Greg’s Uncle Jack had ever heard the Gospel—and it made sense to him. Uncle Jack prayed for forgiveness and was transformed by his new faith in Jesus Christ.

Greg:
00:05:59 I’ll never forget as a kid. He brought 250 people out to Yankee’s church in one month. He brought out bodybuilders and street fighters and gang members. He told everybody at the gym because he wanted everybody to know Jesus. And then the dominoes began to fall in my family. One by one by one, my entire family was radically transformed by the power of the Gospel because of a hillbilly preacher nicknamed Yankee who dared to share the Gospel with my toughest uncle, my Uncle Jack.

Jim: As an 11-year-old, Greg started attending Yankee’s church … but he was too young to attend the youth group. Eh, he snuck in anyways. 
 
Greg:
00:06:39 Yankee had a huge youth ministry. He only had 300 adults in his church; he had about 800 teenagers in his youth group. He believed the fastest way to reach a city was through the young people. So he trained us and he equipped us as teenagers to share the Gospel. And he said, “I want you to think of one person you can tell right away.”

Jim: For Greg, choosing that one person was easy. 

Greg:
00:07:01 My ma, she never thought God could forgive her. So I remember when I was 12, I was trained to share the Gospel. I went home, I sat her down at the kitchen table, she was smoking a cigarette, and I said, “Ma, I want you to know you’re going to go to Heaven when you die.” 

Jim: Greg explained the Gospel to her, but she refused to accept it. 

Greg:
00:07:19 She said, “You don’t know the things I’ve done wrong.” Well, I knew them all, because my grandma had told me. I said, “Ma, it doesn’t matter. Jesus paid it all. All you have to do is put your faith in Christ, believe that He died for you on the cross, that He rose from the dead, trust in Him alone, and you are saved.” And she says, “Not me, I’m too much of a sinner.” 

Jim: Greg prayed and cried, hoping his mom would have a change of heart. He talked to her about a relationship with Jesus Christ for weeks. Weeks turned into months, and the months to years. 

Greg:
00:07:49 By the time I was 15 years old, I shared with her one last time—and that moment at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, she finally got it, and she put her faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And I was not an extraordinary kid. I was an ordinary teenager with extraordinary training … privileged to lead my own ma to Christ and disciple her.

Jim: At that point, Greg was starting to see the Gospel take root in the lives of other people around him.

Greg:
00:08:15 Most of my neighborhood friends came to Christ and then we’d go hit the malls telling people about Jesus. And so this passion for the power of the Gospel and the potential of young people just, kind of, permeated my being.

Jim: But it was the death of an older person that gave Greg a new opportunity to share the Gospel. 

Greg:
00:08:33 My grandfather had died of a massive heart attack. And my uncles, most of whom had come to Christ—one had not yet—rallied in the hospital . And my grandma came into the circle, and they talked to her, and they kept looking over at me, and I’m doing my homework. They came over and they said, “Hey, we want you to preach the sermon at grandpa’s funeral.” And I’m like, “Uh, I’m 15 years old.”

Jim: That didn’t matter to Greg’s uncles.

Greg:
00:08:57 They’re like, “We’re not asking you; we’re telling you, because we know you can preach and you’re going to preach a clear Gospel.” And I’m like, “OK.” You don’t say no to my uncles. And I’ll never forget preaching the Gospel at my grandfather’s funeral and feeling the unction and the weight and the gravity of that moment.

Jim: That day, 500 people heard the Good News ... and during Greg’s invitation, many of those 500 people put their faith in Jesus Christ. 

Greg:
00:09:27 It was that moment that I knew I was going to be an evangelist. 

Jim: And Greg did just that. Years later, after graduating high school and college, he planted Grace Church in the suburbs of Denver with his best friend. Greg remained passionate about equipping and training teenagers to share the Gospel. He wanted others to experience God at a young age like he did. That’s why, off to the side, he started Dare 2 Share Ministries. 

Greg:
00:09:54 For about nine years, I was doing both and things were going really well. The church really began to grow. People were equipped, obviously, to share the Gospel. Over 60% of our congregation came to Christ from people reaching people with the Gospel of Christ, so there was a lot of new believers in our church and it was exciting.

Jim: But on April 20, 1999, tragedy struck Greg’s community … and changed everything.

Greg:
00:10:18 I was in a meeting with six youth leaders promoting a Dare 2 Share conference in Arvada, Colorado, suburb of Denver, and the theme was on spiritual warfare: When all hell breaks loose, strike back, based on Ephesians 6:10–20. The pastor interrupted our meeting about 11:45 a.m. and said, “You guys may want to stop and pray, because all hell has broken loose at Columbine High School,” about 30 minutes down the road.

Jim: Greg and the youth leaders bowed their heads and cried out to God.

Greg:
00:10:48 I knew a lot of the kids at Columbine High School. My wife was a public school teacher in the same district.

Jim: Over the next couple of days, Greg ministered at Clement Park, which was located right across the street from Columbine High School.

Greg:
00:11:01 There were hundreds of reporters from around the world. This felt unprecedented. And I was there to pray with parents and teens and students, and God just really began to work in my soul, that the best way I could serve the church is not by being a pastor of a local church—as much as I love that—but by energizing a generation to mobilizing their youth to Gospelizing the world.

Jim: As he ministered to so many people, a question began to haunt Greg.

Greg:
00:11:29 What if those two shooters would have come to Christ? Because they were high school students at Columbine High School. And what if we could mobilize Christian teenagers on every high school and middle school across the United States and around the world, eventually, to be ambassadors of hope and light, to reach their friends with the Gospel of Christ, and to see potential tragedies averted?

Jim: Soon after the shooting, Greg resigned from the church to go full time with Dare 2 Share.

Greg:
00:11:57 Since then, we’ve been privileged to train millions of teens across the United States and around the world how to clearly share the Gospel and reach their friends and family and neighbors and classmates with the hope of Christ.

Jim: One of those teens impacted early on by Dare 2 Share’s ministry was a 12-year-old girl named Najat, who went to a youth ministry run by a man who went by the nickname Big Ed.

Greg:
00:12:21 Big Ed told me after bringing Najat, the shyest girl he’d ever met, to a Dare 2 Share event, that she led 56 of her classmates to Christ, and brought them to youth group. Our youth group tripled in size because of one 12-year-old girl set on fire for Christ. 

Jim: Over the past few decades, the ministry has heard thousands more stories similar to Najat. The ministry provides free curriculum and resources to equip students to share the Gospel. And anyone can also download the ministry’s free app, Life in 6 Words, to learn how to easily tell others about Jesus Christ.

Greg:
00:12:58 It’s in 20-plus languages and I tell teenagers, “If you can swipe and read, you can share the Gospel using the Life in 6 Words app.”

Jim: And every year, Dare 2 Share runs a weeklong event called Lead the Cause, which began after the Columbine shooting as a Christian camp for student leaders.

Greg:
00:13:16 We do a prayer day, a care day, a share day, and a dare day. On a prayer day, we train them in an intercessory prayer in the morning, and then we take all the students down—and the global leaders—to Columbine High School, where we tell them the story of what happened, because it’s kind of the origin story of Dare 2 Share in many ways. And then we have them pray for Columbine, but also their schools back home, the schools around the world, where teenagers desperately need the Gospel. 

Jim: On top of leading this ministry, Greg has also authored over 20 books, mostly for teenagers and youth leaders. His latest book Radical Like Jesus speaks to ordinary Christians who want to live an extraordinary life.

Greg:
00:13:54 I think there’s a lot of believers out there that are just, you know, they’re going to church and they’re giving in the offering and they try to read their Bibles, and they know they’re not all in. And what struck me is, what if we all chose to become radical like Jesus? What if we were filled with the Spirit of Christ and we lived our lives every day, letting Christ live through us?

MUSIC TRANSITION

Jim: ‘Letting Christ live through you,’ as Greg Stier just said, will fill you with peace, hope, and joy. If you’d like to know more about letting Jesus live through you, then visit us at FindPeaceWithGod.net. That’s FindPeaceWithGod.net. 

In just a moment, Greg will give us one final piece of encouragement for sharing our faith.

Voice-over: You’re listening to GPS: God. People. Stories., a podcast production of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Billy Graham:
00:15:04 Because of technology, this generation is the most critical in modern history, not just for world events but for the kingdom of God. 

Voice-over: Billy Graham …

Billy Graham:
00:15:16 I am convinced that the greatest act of love we can ever perform for another person is to tell them that God’s love for them in Jesus Christ. Evangelism is an act of compassion, as it was for Jesus. We are sent as He was sent. “When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Evangelism in its Biblical sense is concerned with individuals and their relationship to God. It seeks to declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the fact that He died on the cross and shed His blood and rose again and that we must by repentance and faith appropriate Him to our hearts and become His disciples. I want to tell others about Christ because of what He’s done for me.

MUSIC STARTS

Jim: You can learn more about sharing your faith with others by visiting our website: FindPeaceWithGod.net.

Our guest on this episode of GPS: God. People. Stories. is Greg Stier—someone who has a lot of experience sharing his faith. He’s a former pastor, an author, and the founder of Dare 2 Share Ministries. Greg is married to Debbie, and they have two adult children. He says if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, God’s calling you to tell others about Him, regardless of where you are or what else you do.

Greg:
00:16:35 God has placed you in a home, in a family, in a neighborhood, at a job, in a circle of friends as a missionary. You are there to shine the light and shake the salt. You are there to drop Gospel breadcrumbs to lead other people to Christ. Don’t look at this as your pastor’s job. This is your job. God has called you to go and make disciples, starting where you’re at and spreading outward. And God has empowered you with His Holy Spirit to be able to do that, so remember the power of the Gospel. It’s like a grenade. There’s inherent power in that. It doesn’t matter who pulls the pin and throws the grenade; it’s going to explode. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 12-year-old middle school girl. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 30-year-old Marine. There’s power in that grenade. There’s power in the Gospel message. So pull the pin and share the message and watch what God will do.

Jim: We appreciate Greg Stier sharing his story with us and encouraging us to radically live out our faith. If you haven’t already, make sure you’re subscribed to GPS, that way you will not miss a single episode. We post new ones every other Wednesday. And, if you liked this episode, would you do a favor for us? Please review our podcast online or tell a friend about this podcast.

I’m Jim Kirkland, and this is GPS: God. People. Stories. It’s an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association—Always Good News.

CLOSING MUSIC

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