Today I was at lunch at Fishers High School, my first full lunch all year, and I ended up talking with a student who knew I was a youth pastor (it's not hard to figure out) and immediately told her story of the one time in her life she had been to church and why she wouldn't go back.
I won't bother getting to the details, but can everyone do me one of two favors. One, if you've never been to church or been to one bad church, realize they're not all the same. That's like saying "I went to a party and it was bad so I'm never going to any type of party again." There are different churches with different styles of music, different people, different approaches to worshipping God. And for those who ware in churches, can you please be nice to people? Be friendly? Say "hi"? It's amazing how many people I talk to who go to a church and cannot remember anyone saying "hi". That doesn't mean that absolutely nobody said hello, but greetings were few and far enough between that it didn't stick into their memory.
On the flip side, I had one student today realize how easy it is to invite someone to church. Someone asked what I did, I told them, said they're welcome anytime and what do you know, they're thinking about it. And I'm a stranger. Imagine if a friend of theirs invited them...
T
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