Preaching the Gospel in Public School

This morning was GREAT! I was invited to NorthRidge Middle school for Career Day. I wish they'd had Career Days when I was in School, I was pretty clueless about what the real world was about till just a few years ago. Now I'm slightly less clueless.

Mrs Eva invited me to come and this was my 2nd time.
Now since I am there to talk about my "career" choice and, very importantly, "Staying In School," I don't treat this as a chance to preach an evangelistic sermon. But I do try to inject what I can. I talked about the importance of a Pastor maintaining hsi relationship with Jesus Christ and things along that line. I had 3 groups of 20 to 25 kids in each group, and in the last group, a soft spoken young lady raised her hand during Q&A time and asked this; "What can I do to guarantee that I can go to be with Jesus when He comes back?"
Right there in a public school! In front of 25 kids who seem to be fairly engaged in the moment!

What would you say? You know that any minute now the bell is going to ring and an announcement will interrupt what you are saying, so you want to answer this question thoroughly and briefly.

What would you say? These kids are bright, they don't need sugar-coated religiosity.

What would you say? I'll stop asking that now, so you can stop and think about it.
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Hmmmmmm
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Are you ready for MY answer?

I think there are several important points I needed to make.
1. There really was a Jesus and He really rose from the dead. It's a historical fact. Every bit as true as there was a George Washington. There was a Jesus and there was a resurrection.
2. The reason Jesus came and died on the cross was because we have all sinned against God. And God is so HOly and Awesome He doesn't tolerate sin at all. In fact He hates it, He won't put up with it.
3. But He loves us. He made us and loves us and since somebody had to pay for our sins, God sent his only son to come to earth and pay the price for your sin and for my sin. He paid by dying a horrible death.
We couldn't pay for our sin, we were too much sinners, Jesus was perfect.
4. So what do we need to do to guarantee that we will be with Him forever?
We need to Turn and Trust.
Turn from our sins and our selfish way of living and turn to Jesus. Then Trust Jesus, that since he paid the price for our sins, and since he rose from the dead and is still alive today, he will forgive us of our sins when we ask him too, and he will take our sins away from us, as far as the east is from the west. And that's pretty far.

Then I said, now sometimes people need help knowing how to do this, and if you have a youth minister or a pastor you can talk to or simply another strong believer, you can ask them and they'll help you. Or you can ask me. (I had handed out my church name and contact info just in case they ever need me.)

Did I include the essentials in that brief amount of time that I had? Did I miss anything?
Sure there is much you can say if you have the time and you have a dialogue going. But for two minutes I tried to hit a home run.

Now every home run needs a great pitch. I think that young lady asked me that question Solely so that I could tell her friends how to be saved and what it means to become a Christian. I could be wrong, but I think I'm right.

That's one reason its good to have a Christian friend with you when you have an opportunity to talk to someone about their faith. Having a friend ask a question like this young lady did is a great way to go. It might be the kind of question a non-believer might ask if they knew how to phrase it. They can ask other questions of you like, "What do you mean by Repent?" Or "how would you give your life to Jesus?"

I hope you'll say a prayer for the kids that heard the gospel today. It's not everyday you get to share Christ and the message of Salvation in a public school. And when I think of what a wicked little brat I was at their age, I know I needed the gospel badly! And I thank God for loving me that much in spite of myself!
I saw a Tweet this week that said:
Good News, you're worse than you think you are, but
Good News, God's grace is greater than you can imagine.


I Love you all, God bless,  Clark