It was probably about 100ish degrees yesterday evening when I set out to do my weekly visitation route for Kids Klub. The first few visits went rather quickly since no one was in a particularly talkative mood. However, when I arrived at house #5, four girls were sitting outside underneath a covered swing. Two I knew, two I did not.
They were in a talking mood.
"How old are you?" (My reply to this one was: "Well, how old do you think I am?" )
"Are you married?"
"Do you have kids?"
And the more serious, like:
"Have you ever been in a fight?" (Uh...no...but, yes, if you count the times my brother and I got into it)
"Well, if you didn't get in fights, were you a loner?"
"Were you a nerd?"
And on it went, until questions like these began to surface:
"Why do you drink the blood?" (referring to the Lord's Supper)
"Is it true that the stuff that gets hot on the road is from the devil?" (Huh??? Asphalt?)
"Is it true that when it rains, God is crying?" (Rain? What is that? This is Phoenix!)
"So how do you know what to believe?"
"What do Jehovah's Witnesses believe?"
As I attempted to answer their questions, I quickly began to see that my occasional lapses into Christian-ese were baffling them. In a writing class I took in college, I remember the professor stressing that good writers move the reader from what he knows to what he doesn't know. In my opinion, it's also a great principle that can be applied to sharing your faith. What does the seeker or listener already know and understand? If I'm only recently acquainted with the person, that means I need to ask some questions and spend time getting to know the person. That then provides a platform to launch into what they don't know about....and if it's Jesus that is the topic of discussion -- how exciting is that?!??
I hope they're still in a talking mood the next time I visit.
- Amy
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