THE VISITORS

As visitors come in your youth ministries, we have one night to make sure they decide to come back. One encounter. One chance. And feeling alone is the number one reason for no return.

How can we teach student and adult leaders the importance of simply sitting with someone who is sitting alone? Reaching out to someone who looks different? Doug Fields did a great article about this very topic.

Here are some great insights:

1.      Step Into Their Shoes. We need to teach young people to walk in someone else’s shoes.

·         “What is it like to be Jackson?” When talking student leaders, I paint a picture of a fictional kid that might walk into our youth room. “He’s not dressed like you dress. He has a scowl on his face. When you say ‘hi’ to him he almost smirks at you condescendingly. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to be here.”

2.      Ask your Leaders Questions:

·         Why might “Jackson” be acting like this?

·         What does Jackson need?

·         What is the best way to respond to Jackson?

I then tell them a little more about this hypothetical teenager’s background: single parent home, dad left him when he was young, mom is a bartender barely making ends meet, never had a positive role model in his life, desperately wanting to fit in somewhere, grandma brings him to church every once in a while.

“Have you ever thought, What is it like to be Jackson?”

We need to let our teenagers experience the Holy Spirit moving them with compassion. We need to help young people look at the lost with a different perspective…with the eyes of Jesus (Matthew 9:36).

I think this is a great point and a challenge to consider. Maybe this is something you have already addressed with your leaders but it never hurts to push the point across. The reality is there are too many “Jacksons” out there who never get the help they need because we never put our self’s in their shoes. They are hurting for a reason and the only way to truly reach them to see life fro their perspective.  Passion will come when perspective kicks in. 

Source: www.dougfields.com.