Last night, a bunch of us got together and watched Seinfeld, played some Texas Hold 'em and completed the ecstasy with four large Papa John's Pizzas. The idea behind it was, obviously, have some fun, but also to draw in our unchurched friends and kind of get them in the loop. We weren't selling Christianity at all; it wasn't a pitch for 412. We don't view people as numbers, or even as jewels on heavenly crowns, but we see them as people, souls, hungry for something more. We want to show them this something more. We want to build relationships, not just to share with them Good News of the message, but mostly just to have a good time and build friendships for the heck of it.

A friend of mine is really spiritually hungry. He starves for God, starves for something to really believe in. He's gone through a lot of hard times, and he's very skeptical of churches. From what he tells me, his family went to a church once and all they did was ask for money (this is the same case for another friend of mine), and now they won't even step foot inside a church. He wants nothing to do with Christianity. The question, then, is how do I show him what he wants? He knows what he wants; he just doesn't think it will come through Jesus. He has lots of respect for Jesus, he just doesn't think he's really the Son of God. How can I show him this Jesus? Through my life! Yet I hardly ever see him. Periodically I see him for brief instances in the halls at school, and every now and then we're scheduled together at I.G.A., but other than that, I never see him.

When I invite him to hang out when the goal is "let's get these people in so they can find life and we can have new friends" something always inevitably comes up; every now and then we go to Borders and 1/2 Price and browse, and that's as good a time as any, methinks. God has put him on my heart, and I've reached out, but I don't think it is mere coincidence that many times when he could've met other Christians things fell apart. My heart breaks for this kid. I just want him to know, to believe, to experience - life.