Lesson #2

One thing I strongly believe is that as believers, we are all called to share Jesus with people. The world needs Jesus, and for the past 10 years the main way that I shared Jesus with people was through young life. Just because I'm not leading, doesn't mean I don't need to share Jesus with people. The thing is I no longer have the platform of young life - where people expect me to talk about Jesus.. The challenge now is to just share Jesus with the people who are in my every day life: girls on my soccer team, soccer parents, co-workers, neighbors, etc.

This has been incredibly challenging for me, since these people don't necessarily expect me to talk about Jesus with them, and also, are mostly older than me. When I lead young life, one of my favorite things to do was to go to starbucks and sit down and talk about life with the students I knew. I loved hearing about what was going on, and getting to share with them why Jesus was relevant to their situations and why He matters in their lives, and the hope that He offers.

The thought of doing this with soccer parents, co-workers, etc. is a little scary to me. I knew it would be putting me outside my comfort zone, which is always a good thing. But when it comes to building relationships with these people I feel really awkward and doubt that they would want to hang out with me. When it comes to sharing Jesus I for some reason don't want to bring it up. Through this, the Holy Spirit has revealed a lot about the condition of my heart. I have learned 2 main things through this. One is that I lack faith, and the other is that I lack a love for people.

These two things kind of go hand in hand. I realized that I lack faith that Christ is really what people need. I think that because they are older than me, and have kids and life experiences that I don't, that I don't have much to offer them. The awesome thing about leading high schoolers was that I've been through what they're going through. I have the experience to share. But when it comes to building relationships with people older than myself, I feel inadequate. So, one thing I have been praying about and asking God for is for a bigger faith, that truly believes that Jesus is really all people need. And I can talk about Him with confidence, knowing that He is the answer for whatever people are going through, even if it's something I don't have experience with.

One of the biggest reasons I get nervous talking about Jesus with people is that I'm afraid they will feel awkward, think that I am weird or judge me in some way, or that they will think I don't care about them and I just want to push a belief system on them. And that has made me realize that I care more about what people think of me, than about them. And it kind of goes back to the whole faith thing. If I really believe that Jesus is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, why would I not want to share Him with people? It should just be a natural part of sharing who I am. I'm not afraid to talk about Derek with people. And I know it isn't my job to convince anyone to believe anything, only to share what I know to be true.

Not sure if you've ever seen this you tube video of Penn from Penn & Teller sharing about a time when someone gave him a Bible after one of their shows. He is an atheist, and this video is really cool. I definitely recommend taking the 5 minutes it takes to watch it.



So basically, God has shown me a lot of areas where I need to grow. And while stepping away from young life has been hard, I think it was necessary for me to really grow in my faith. I'm not sure what our lives will look like 5 years from now, or even one year from now. I'm not sure if our ministry future involves our current church, young life, or something completely different. But I do know that I need to be faithful where we are now, and that involves taking risks, having greater faith, and learning what it means to really love other people more than myself.