Class last night

Sunday night class last night was pretty cool. I am really blessed to be able to teach it; it's helped me tremendously, and I hope it's helped my youth group as well.

Last week we had started talking about witnessing. I wanted to go through the subject because we haven't studied it in a long time, not in class anyway. Dusty and Chris teach a tract time at church camp called "Extreme Evangelism - They Don't Serve Breakfast in Hell", but not all of our youth have taken it; and some probably needed a refresher.

So we've been discussing witnessing, and it's a lot of fun. Last night we continued something we'd started last week. I had been having people give the references to Bible verses that might be useful in witnessing. Last week we'd gotten the basic verses of the Roman Road: Romans 3:23, 6:23, 5:8, and 10:9. Those verses are the most popular to use in witnessing, and don't get me wrong, I think they're great and we should absolutely know them and use them. But I wanted to see what else the youth would come up with for witnessing verses.

Over about 30 minutes, they pretty much blew me away. They listed some more obvious ones: Acts 16:31, Ephesians 2:8, John 3:16. But most of them were leafing through their Bibles looking for more references while others shared theirs, and they found verse after verse that could be used in sharing the Gospel. Stuff like John 10:9-10, Isaiah 55:6-7, Matthew 1:21, and on and on.

Many of them didn't just share a pertinent verse; they would also explain why the verse might be useful in a witnessing opportunity. That really blessed me too, because one of my major goals as I teach Sunday night class is that the youth not merely learn stuff, but learn how to apply it and use it in their lives.

We had a really good time and came up with far more verses than I had ever imagined. Hannah's going to type them up and let everybody have copies next week, so that they can look at the verses further and hopefully memorize them (I encourage that). Also next week, we're going to discuss different questions or issues that might come up while you're witnessing to someone, and we'll do some scenarios. That's right, situations where people like Dusty or Chris or Jordan or Trevor or whoever can both practice and demonstrate ways to witness.

It's pretty cool to see the youth getting into this; evangelism is one of the most important things we can talk about and do, and I hope and pray they're seeing the importance. I'm looking forward to class on Sunday night. Thank You, God, for giving me a youth group that seeks to know You and Your Word better, and for the opportunity to teach them what little I know!