Last week, the Wheeless family took to the streets. We put the boy in his stroller with his sippy cup and some pretzels, grabbed our Fall Festival fliers, and started walking our neighborhood. This was an intentional effort to get our family involved in reaching our Jerusalem. Evey has helped with blitzes before and enjoys putting fliers on doors, but we had different plans this time. I wanted to encourage her to approach people and personally give them an invitation to Fall Festival. It took little to encourage her to approach those we met as we walked, and she even got frustrated with me when I would start the conversation instead of letting her do it. We had a great time and met several of our neighbors. Sharon and I were able to cut Evey off a couple of times and talked with a young couple who live one street over from us. We are praying that they visit NEHBC and we will follow up with them in the weeks to come. Everything was going great until...
Evey ran into a boy that she had experienced some problems with months earlier. His older sister had instigated some rather inappropriate conversations between Evey and the boy, which really embarrassed Evey. Also, days before I had to correct this young man's behavior when he came to our front door wanting to know if Evey could come out and play. He once again embarrassed Evey and I sent him away. Evey and I have had conversations about why this boy acts the way he does. She knows that he is lost and doesn't understand his need for a personal relationship with Christ. Evey has made some wise decisions to avoid playing with this young man when he acts inappropriately, but we have had difficulty helping her balance that with not ignoring her call from God to reach this lost boy.
As we walked through our neighborhood we passed this young man three times. The first time I tried to get Evey to give him an invitation and she begged me to do it. As we walked off, we talked about the need for us to love those who are not like us and our responsibility for pointing the lost to Christ. I explained that she just missed an opportunity to show this young man forgiveness and the love of Christ. She dusted herself off and pressed on. When she passed him again she still did not have the courage to approach him. This time I could tell it was bothering her. She asked me again to give the invitation to him for her and I refused. I told her if she thought that this boy needed an invitation to our Fall Festival where he would have the chance to hear about the love of Jesus she was going to have to invite him. I assured her I was right there with her. On the third try, she got the courage and while holding Sharon's hand she approached the boy, called him by name, gave him a flier, and personally invited him to come. We are praying hard that he and his family will come.
You can teach the biblical mandates of evangelism, sharing the love of Christ, and forgiveness, but they will not take hold in the lives of your children until they see you practice them and they are given opportunities to do the same. Evey has to be around this young man because they live in the same neighborhood and play in the same playground. She has to learn to represent Christ in her interactions with him regardless of what he says or does. That one interaction did more for her spiritual growth than any other conversation she had that day. We must be intentional in our efforts to help our children along their spiritual journey or they will wander astray. Are you creating and taking advantage of opportunities to help your children and family grow spiritually?
If you are looking for a place to start, meet us in the lobby at NEHBC tomorrow night at 6:45pm and help us blitz neighborhoods with fliers for our Fall Festival this weekend. Its fun, its easy, and it will open doors for you to teach and lead your family in the mission of Christ.
