Last night at church, our student ministries pastor did an experiment to see if our youth would approach a new person that looked a little different. He had his brother in law come dressed in torn jeans, a t-shirt that had a scary picture, a green army jacket and a skull cap. He stood in 1 spot for the entire pre-service time while the kids played basketball, pool and did their normal social things. Not many of the kids even noticed him.
During the sermon, Pastor Troy talked about being true disciples and explained that they would have to also interact with people outside of their circle. He challenged them to stop playing church and start living a life of discipleship. He introduced his brother in law and told the kids about the experiment and told them that they might have missed an opportunity to show Jesus to someone. This “stranger” might have been someone on the breaking point that had decided that he was going to go to church and that if no one there talked to him, he was going to go home and end his life. We never know the impact we are making on other people!
I hope that it showed our youth to be on the lookout for new people and to at least say hello. I always talk to everyone, that’s just my personality, but I will be more aware of making sure that new people get plugged into the groups as soon as they can.

Filed under: Blog, Ministry, Youth Ministry