I Thought That Chapter Was Over. Then My Former Cult Leader Emailed Me.
The Rebrand of Ron Luce
Ron Luce keeps popping up in my inbox lately with what I can only assume is his next grift, shrouded in a cloak of goodwill and Christian propriety. This time, he’s using the email list he collected from the 80,000 teens who participated in Global Expeditions—known as GE to the evangelical teens. The subject line reads: “SURGE: 3 REASONS WHY IS IT BETTER THAN ACQUIRE THE FIRE.”
No, that’s not my typo. He wrote it in all caps, exactly as I transcribed it.
The rest of the email tries to tie together the legacy of GE and ATF (Acquire The Fire) to pitch a new series of SURGE events launching this fall. This time, he’s not aiming for stadiums. Now, “it is so much better,” because the events are designed to be hosted in your very own community church.
“It is hosted in YOUR CHURCH, same world-class ministry, but life-change happens in your location, so new people are familiar and bonded to you.”
Translation: The trauma bonding will now happen under your roof, with your oversight. What more could a youth pastor want than to be the hero of his own little kingdom?
His second point:
Your youth are trained in advance to be disciple-makers so they are all ready to help the new followers of Jesus after SURGE to keep growing!
It’s a massive leap. The assumptions packed into that single sentence are wild. It’s giving MLM. If you buy into this perfect solution to an exaggerated problem, you’ll be at the top of the hierarchy when you recruit the next wave of buyers—I mean, believers.
And finally, his third point:
"We give you all the tools to FILL YOUR CHURCH with youth in your region!"
So there it is. The pitch isn’t transformation. It’s growth metrics. And that’s why pastors all over the country don’t see this for what it is. It looks like an offer they can’t refuse. Because what kind of shepherd would say no to filling their pews with impressionable young souls ready to recruit—sorry, disciple—others?
I know how this game works. I was told my existence was to “forcefully advance the Kingdom of God.” You can read more about that here. →
He goes on in the email to ask for church partners “who are interested in expanding their youth ministries” to host what will have “even more potential than Acquire the fire”. He includes a two-minute promo video packed with nostalgia: footage from the 90s and early 2000s, teens weeping, sermons about forgiveness and repentance, and of course, pyrotechnics. Never underestimate the power of explosions in an arena full of adolescents desperate to come alive.
He ends the email with…
The slogan says it all, “Be the church that ignites change in the next generation”!
Signed simply,
Ron
And he can sign it that casually. Because back then, we all knew who he was. He was the guy who convinced hundreds of thousands of evangelical teens that it was up to us to save the next generation.
Let’s do the math.
I was part of that generation he said needed saving—back in the 90s. He told us repeatedly that we had to reach our peers before it was too late. Phones, secular music, the internet—those were the evils that would kill the church. Convert… I mean reach…the lost before the age of 21. That was the mission.
Now, I’m nearly 38, and he’s targeting 12 to 18-year-olds. At minimum, a 20-year gap between ATF and SURGE. So what happened in between?
After Luce shut down the epicenter of his empire in 2015, he left the country.
He sent occasional email updates about his global mission work. One in 2017 read like a Christmas card. He described the mental, physical, and emotional toll Teen Mania took on him and his wife, Katie, calling it a marathon of vision. He wrote:
"Together, we saw literally millions worship God for 3 decades and many hundreds of thousands meet Jesus in an authentic face-to-face encounter. Together, we saw many more, about 80,000, leave their selfish American lifestyle and travel to a faraway land to take the precious message of the Gospel."
Then came the pivot.
He said he’d realized he had spent decades pouring his life into just 4% of the world’s population. America, he now believed, wasn’t enough. So he began traveling to China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Nigeria, Colombia, Albania, England, and Germany.
He described it as a season to:
"Contemplate how I can better leverage my life and energies to impact youth worldwide for Christ."
In that same letter, he referenced global stats about Christianity barely keeping up with birth rates and then launched into his next mission to get global youth involved in what he called a “GOD SIZED event” called JESUS GLOBAL YOUTH DAY (yes, in all caps).
This time, he signed off under a new brand,
Generation Next
I never received an update on this global endeavor.
But curiosity got the better of me, so I asked my trusty AI research assistant what happened with it.
Turns out, Jesus Global Youth Day (JGYD)—the “God-sized” event Ron launched in 2019—did happen. It was held in the Philippines, drew around 50,000 attendees, and claimed connections with over 100,000 churches worldwide. On paper, it looked impressive.
But here’s the thing: people who knew the history weren’t buying it.
Teen Mania, the ministry Ron built (and later ran into the ground), had already faced waves of controversy by that point. We’re talking accusations of spiritual abuse, cult-like control, and financial mismanagement. An MSNBC documentary in 2011—Mind Over Mania—blew a lot of it open. By 2015, Teen Mania had collapsed under its own weight, with lawsuits, unpaid debts, and even a warrant out for Ron in Colorado when he skipped a court hearing.
So while JGYD didn’t land him in new legal trouble, it definitely didn’t wipe the slate clean. For many of us watching from the outside, it felt more like a strategic rebrand than any kind of reckoning. Same old tactics, new international stage.
And now… he’s back again.
Same grift.
Different name.
Maybe he thinks a decade made us forget.
I’m a bit concerned that might be the case.
Because sometimes all it takes is a rebrand—especially when fear-mongering creates fertile ground for the kind of spiritual abuse that looks holy from the outside.
If any part of this felt too familiar—if it stirred old memories or left a knot in your gut—you’re not alone. Many of us who came of age in these movements are still untangling what was ours, what was imposed, and what we want to carry forward.
And healing from this kind of spiritual manipulation isn’t just about walking away. It’s about learning to reconnect—with your own sense of truth, with relationships that aren’t built on control, and with ways of being that feel nourishing rather than performative.
That’s what I write about here—reclaiming what was buried, rebuilding trust in yourself, and imagining something better than the fear-based systems we were handed.
If that speaks to you, I invite you to subscribe and stay connected. You don’t have to sort this out alone.
Also, if you're wondering how to spot these rebrands when they come knocking again, you’ll want to check out my next post: “Red Flags to Watch For in Rebranded Spiritual Movements.”
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