Evangelism... or something like it.

We have started a new year... and with that, we've decided that we need to do some things differently. Javier is determined to be organized and on time. So far he has been pretty organized... he even lines up his pens on his desk. As for on time... well that will come :) I've decided to try to have a little bit of a life. I spend so much time at the church (which is not a bad thing) but I'm trying to make sure I have time with my friends and family as well. But we've also made some changes in the direction of the youth group. We're working on planning na dorganizing more ahead of time... although we sat down to plan the calendar for the year, and we got through March and Javi couldn't think any farther ahead :) So that has to be done in small doses.

One of the things we're pretty excited about is Evangelism. We have planned one evangelism day each month. So a couple of weeks ago we ventured out for our first one. We weren't really sure what to expect.. We thought maybe 2 or 3 teens would show up, but if not, we were prepared to do it anyway. So we printed out little cards...
...and we headed to the Long Beach town Center which is like a big outdoor shopping center with a movie theater and food court. We were happily suprised to be met by about 15 teens! We haded out the cards to the teens, prayed together and off they went to talk to people. It wasn't long before security cornered Javvy (Javier's 16 year old son) and told him we couldn't do that there, that it was private property. In the process of being kicked out, Javvy had this conversation with the security guard:

Javvy (while playing guitar): "Do you go to church?"
Security: "I'm sorry but you can't be doing that here."
Javvy: "I just asked if you go to church"
Security: "No."
Javvy: "Well do you want to come to ours? we have a service tomorrow."

Needless to say, the teens were awesome. They stepped out of their comfort zones and they did a fantastic job! And they were even disappointed when we couldn't continue!

* * * * *

Last week we went to a local high school to watch one of our teens play in a basketball game. As we were leaving, we saw two girls running around the corner and into the bathroom. A couple seconds later, one of our teen boys came running after them. He saw me, and he said, "Oh good! You're a girl! Go in there and tell them you're my youth pastor! I want them to go to church!"

It turns out he'd been chasing the girls around trying to get them to go to youth group!

It's exciting to see our teens getting excited about God... and spreading that excitement and enthusiasm to the people around them. God is doing huge things in our youth group... I really believe that a revival is starting with our teens!