It is Necessary to Use Words

Yesterday, I was at Harris Teeter picking up a few things with one of my roommates. We had just grabbed what we needed and were making our way to the register to check out when he began to chat with a friend of his who runs a basketball league and camp at a local church that one of our other roommates attends. On Monday nights, the church held and open gym, and different people would gather to play basketball. The coach asked my roommate if he remembered a guy named Rodney, to which my roommate replied yes, that he did know him. The coach went on to tell us that Rodney had recently been killed in a car crash, where a driver crossed the median, and hit him head on. What he said next hit me deep, in the gut. 

Visibly, the guy looked shaken. After all, he was telling a story about a young man he knew who had been killed. I could tell that he was struggling with it. He found out about the wreck while he and some friends were in China doing a mission basketball camp, and that it hit him hard, because he didn't know where Rodney was spiritually. I haven't been able to get that thought out of my head. 

I want that to be my first thought, when I see anyone. I want to immediately want to know where someone I meet or see is spiritually, whether they have found salvation. 

I feel like so often, in Youth Ministry, I worry about whether students are off drinking, or smoking, or hooking up, and I don't think its wrong to worry about things like that. I also do question their spiritual journey, where they are with the Lord, what their walk looks like. But I want to yearn to know someones story. To not have to worry about their salvation. Not just with students, but with everyone I come in contact to. With anyone I work with. Anyone who I see from my past, or anyone new I meet. I want to never have to struggle with the thought that someone I could have witnessed to I didn't. 

So where does that leave me? Who knows. Do I become the guy on the corner, King James in hand, proclaiming the word? Do I become the guy on the brickyard at a college campus, yelling the gospel? I don't think I have to want to become anyone other that who I am. But I do think that I have to rethink the way that I live my life. Not in actions, but in tongue. 

St. Francis of Assisi once said "Preach the gospel continually, and when necessary use words". Living out the gospel is one thing. I think that anyone can live a good life on the outside, that they can "live the Christian life", feed the poor, go to church, pray continually, but to actually speak, to proclaim the gospel, to share your story, that's something totally different. It's more than tweeting a line of a good Jesus Culture song, or Instagramming a picture of a page in your Bible, more than taking a Vine of a cool Christian concert. Being living proof of the healing, and redemption, and freedom that life in Christ brings, and proclaiming that verbally completely changes the game.