Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Tobogganing, Pizza and Jesus

This morning at breakfast club we discussed how easy or difficult it is for us to talk to our friends about our faith. Each student there had talked to someone about Jesus in the last week but admitted they felt ill equipped to enter into serious dialogue. This morning I ran across this little story and feel motivated to equip our students to whimsically and gently share Jesus.

Here's the story...

My name is Trevor, I'm 21 now but its a funny story how I discovered religion.

I was 11 years old when I was invited to a Christian church youth group by a friend I had met a year earlier after moving to a new town, So I went. We went tobogganing, and snowmobiling. I was having a fantastic time!

So dinner came around and pizza was ordered. When the pizza got there, everyone got plates and sat down. Thats when everyone held hands and prayed. I had no clue what was going on. When they finished I had already started eating, and asked my friend Drew who everyone was talking to. He replied "Are you serious?" I said ya there is no one else in the room. He said "Jesus!", I replied "who is Jesus?"..... "GOD!" he said. So I said " I can't see him." and he said "no one can."...... "So how do you know he's there?" I replied. His best answer was "My parents have taught me that you may not see him, but hes everywhere and helps everyone." I replied with a quick "I don't believe in ghosts." and he couldn't reply.

To this day he has questioned his religion. He still believes but he has trouble believing. Hopefully one day he will join reality.


What if Trevor showed up at your youth group?
Any ideas about how to better prepare our students for these kind of discussions?

I'm all ears.

2 comments:

  1. Great post, important to address and not take for granted. David thanks for sharing this, makes me wonder how to prepare our leaders as well for this situation. I think we need to start by asking our teens how they would handle the situation.

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  2. Great point. It might even be worth reading this story to them and asking the to respond.

    Thanks for the idea.

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