Last week we had club at a sophomore gal’s house. I had met her brother Evan a few years ago. He’s a senior who I see around school and sometimes at Chick-fil-a, where we hold our weekly morning campaigners, but he’s never come to club. When I saw him come in the house a few minutes before the talk, I began to pray.
He was walking around outside of the living room where we were having club, and I asked the Lord that Evan would hear the words of the talk and catch a glimpse of Jesus. After club I spoke to him in the kitchen.
“How’s it going, Evan?”
“Good man. I see you all the time at school and Chick-fil-a and stuff, and I’ll always remember that time you gave me a donut in the parking lot before school a few years ago. That was really cool.”
It broke my heart because when I think about Evan, I’m reminded that “the harvest is plenty and the workers are few”. Jim, the funniest YL leader I know, and I were at the first baseball game of the year last night, with lacrosse and soccer going on at the same time, and it hit us just how many teenagers there are at the high school. It is overwhelming when I think about how I wish we could know everyone of them and point them towards Christ.
My hope and prayer is that our ministry will reflect Paul’s ministry and the way he describes it in 2nd Corinthians 3:2.
“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”
The only way this happens is through Christ who compels us to love our high school friends so much that we “share with them not only the Gospel, but our lives as well.” (1 Thes. 2:8) We gave out dozens of donuts that rainy morning before school a few years ago. We may never know what kind of impact it had. As leaders, we have been given the privilege of sowing seeds at the high school in many different ways. Sometimes that seed is a donut.
This guest post was written by Charlie Heritage, a volunteer Young Life leader in NC and the world’s biggest ECU Pirates fan.
Do you have an Young Life story that could encourage other leaders? Please share in the comments below or by submitting a guest post.
