THS Everyday Evangelists - Ian

What does it look like when a teenager actually catches the evangelism bug? 

In this episode, Aaron Rosa sits down with Ian, a senior at Chesapeake High School and one of his discipleship guys, to trace how a Kenya mission trip became the turning point that changed everything. Ian shares the full story of Henry — a conversation on a bus, a pocket KJV Bible, and a kid from Nairobi who gave his life to Christ. He also opens up about sharing the gospel with a classmate at Chick-fil-A, a jarring confrontation with a stranger at the library who wished she had been aborted, and what it actually feels like to witness God work in real time. Aaron pulls back the curtain on the dual purpose of gospel proclamation, the Hood Shepherd for Teens resource, and why evangelism might be the best discipleship tool nobody talks about.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:43

Hey everybody, my name is Aaron Rosa. I'm the Hood Shepherd, and today I am here with a friend of mine who is not exactly what you would think of as an evangelist. He's a teenager. We don't think of teenagers actually doing evangelism or doing ministry, but he's one of the budding evangelists that I've been discipling, and he's got some wonderful stories and a great heart to share about sharing the gospel with the teenagers in his life and just the people he finds himself around. So I don't know. Is that a cool enough intro for you? Yeah, that's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

So why don't you introduce yourself? Like tell everybody who you are. My name's Ian, and I'm a senior at Chesapeake High School. Okay in Pasadena.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

Why don't you just tell me a little bit about your heart? How does a teenager get into wanting one Jesus? Two, wanting to share the gospel with his friends.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah. So I actually was the complete opposite of how I was like two years ago. I would like deny Jesus and be like, no, I'm not a Christian. What's a Christian? But after the Kenya trip, it kind of opened my eyes to what I was a believer on the Kenya trip, but it opened my eyes to what Jesus is and how selfish I am to not say that Jesus is King and share it to as many people or with my friends at the very least. What happened on this Kenya trip that kind of made that? So we were going to schools and there was schools where there were kids that knew about God but didn't know a lot about Jesus, and we were basically like sharing the little kid Bible stories and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Just for background, we we all went to Kenya last summer for 10 days. Now, something very cool did happen on that trip though. Yes. Tell me about Henry. This is such a great story.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

So we're going to church. Elsie, one of the RPA volunteers, basically a missionary in Kenya.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

She's Kenyan. She lives in the area. She's a local missionary.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Yeah. Her little brother, that's my age. I'm actually still in touch with him, and it's awesome. But his name was Henry. And we were going to church. We stopped at a gas station or something to get food and snacks. And I met Henry there. Didn't think much of it. I was like, okay, cool. And then we got to the Kenyan church. It was just a little shack, but it was awesome. A once-in-a-lifetime experience, definitely. But then Henry and I start talking during the service, and we have commonalities and sports. We have commonalities and and then at the end of the service, the I guess pastor, he would he said the Lord's Prayer in Swahili. And Henry was like, Hey, I could teach you the Lord's Prayer in Swahili on the bus ride back if you want to sit with me. And I'm like, Yeah, dude, that would be awesome. And I could share a little bit of my testimony with you too. So we get on the bus, and then he starts teaching me a little bit of the Lord's Prayer, but then he starts asking about my testimony and my story, like cutting himself off on that and starts talking to me about that. So then I tell him my full testimony, which was like 30 minutes, an hour-ish of the time. But it's okay, the bus ride was like two hours or so. And after my testimony, I asked him to share his experience with the world and everything. And it's insane. He's had a lot of abuse and not a good His mom loves him, but his dad's just an alcoholic and abused him and stuff when he's drinking. And it's very sad. And then I asked him, Do you have any Bible verses? Like favorite Bible verse? And he said the one word, I forget where it is, but it's where it says, No weapon will prevail, or Yeah, no weapon formed against you shall pass. And then we start talking about that in scripture. I had this little KJV Bible, this little pocket one. But but I just start flipping through and I start reading. I don't even know the scripture that I started reading. It was literally the Holy Spirit going through me and onto the Bible and speaking to me, and I'm speaking to Henry. And it's just one scripture after another. It's just piled on, and it's all relevant to what he's going through and stuff. And then I get to my my life verses, Psalm 23 and Philippians 4.13. Uh Psalm 23, even though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. That one for Philippians 4.13. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And that's when something hits like Henry, like not just those scripture, but everything piled on going into him, and he starts crying. So then I pray for him for peace and comfort, and then he just starts crying more. And I'm like, Do you want to give your life to Christ right now? Yes. So reads next to me, and I'm like, look at that, Reed. Hey Ray, can you pray for him?

SPEAKER_03 5:56

That's amazing, man.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Yeah, that's by far what really awakened me to sharing the gospel to people, not only people that I don't know. Strangers can come up to me and talk to me, and I'll start telling them about Jesus. Do you find that happens a lot when strangers come up and talk to you? Yeah, I've found that it happens more often than I would expect. Normally I'm like a I wouldn't say closed soft person, but like I don't talk to strangers a lot. But strangers just normal conversation checking out or at Starbucks, and I'm ringing people up and making their drink. And one of them, like you can tell they're having a hard day and stuff, so you ask, hey, what's wrong? Anything I can help with or anything? Just normal human being stuff, and then they start telling you their like issues for the day and stuff. And then you're like, Okay, awesome. Can I pray for you real quick? And then they're like stunned by like a workers. And then normally they say yes, if not, then like it is what it is, and like you do what you can. But then you pray for them and they ask you, Why'd you do that? And I'm like, Because of Jesus. And they're like, What's Jesus? And then like, you're I'm so glad you asked.

unknown 7:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Yeah. But there was this one guy, uh, I remember him very well. Never knew his name. He would always come into the cafeteria during lunch, and he had his Bible. He would start spreading the word to everyone. Me and a few friends of mine started throwing food at him because like it's embarrassing. Like, we would make fun of him. And like this was before I like accepted Jesus, and I was following, wanting to fit in, wanting to do anything I could to fit in. So I was not a very nice person. And I started mocking him, making fun. But he never retaliated, and that like made me realize, like, oh, that this guy actually genuinely means what he's saying. But it didn't make me stop. Wow. Yeah. It didn't make me stop, it just made me want to fit him more because the more retaliation you got, the more popular you were gonna become. So I just kept going at it. But yeah, and then what changed? Then he graduated, so he was a senior doing this, which is wow crazy. But yeah, like he didn't even have to be in school, and he would come to school just to do that. Wow. Yeah. And I think he was like Roman Catholic or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. But it was just very like I remember that vividly, and then being like, I'd never do that now. Here I am. Not exactly standing up on a table in the cafeteria punk, but I hope this guy is watching.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

I hope he is listening. I hope so too. I have a feeling he'd be very proud of you. I think that the story that he would hear right now makes it all worth it. Yeah. So you were sharing with me the other day. So if we're contacting and calls me every now and then and we talk, and I consider myself a little bit of a mentor figure in his life. But you called me the other day and you were very excited about something that had happened. Yes. Can you tell me about that? Because you actually gave me the preview of that, but you never really actually gave me the whole story. So, like, dude, tell me what happened.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Okay. So this started like beginning of the year. Her name's Cadence. We went to homecoming with each other just as friends and stuff, ditched me, but it's okay. If you hear the end of the story, it works out. Yeah, it's okay. But we we've been friends, she moved and then she moved back, so like our friendship like restarted and stuff. And like we're an avid together, and it was me, Cadence, and Devin. And Cadence has she claims to be an atheist, but she like believes that there is something out there for her, like a god of higher power or like reincarnation, or she doesn't know what to believe.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

So she doesn't believe that there's nothing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's very few, by the way. Very few people actually believe that. If you're uh it at all familiar with Hood Shepherd, we do a lot of data data analytics for ministry intelligence, and in the state of Maryland, only like one percent of people identify as actual atheists. I say that not to sound smart, I say that because most people's biggest fear when it comes to evangelism is uh not having the answers. Yeah. I not having the answers. What if I run into an atheist? I was like, dude, you're you're probably not gonna run into an atheist. Yeah, you have a higher likelihood of running into a witch or a pagan or something like that than you do an atheist. But that's a whole other like ball of like research.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

That's any better.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

I think I'd run into an atheist before which that's the difference between you and me. I'm like big witch guy or big atheist guy.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

All right, okay, so sorry. Anyways, so so she she believes there's something out there. You guys still talk, you're in a class together.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

And do like every she knows I'm a Christian, she knows that I'm like very into my church, I'm very deep into my faith, and believe that everything's true because I'm open to sharing that with her. We've had conversations before about it, but nothing that really stuck or like a few weeks ago. Alright. Anyway, tell us the story. Okay, so Avid during Avid class, if we don't have a teacher, we like a substitute, we can just leave because there's nothing to do on Wednesday, and then we go to Chick-fil-A. I almost didn't go because I had to serve in the chapel that weekend, and I was like, uh, I kind of could use some practicing, but then I was like, no, I'm just gonna go. I can't leave her there by herself. So I went and we sit down. The conversation starts off by making her making a joke about do Mormons really shake the bed and how does that work? I love it. Yeah, so that'll stop your prize. Yeah. But we start talking about that, we start talking about like how why Mormons Mormonism is a cult and what's wrong with it. And then she starts asking me questions about Christianity and why I believe the Bible's true, and how I can be so sure that the Bible's true, and that someone that I don't know, or well, not don't know, but can't see physically like I'm looking at you, how I know someone like that's real and is with me. So I start telling her about why I believe the Bible's true first, and that's because it's the disciples' deaths that really made me believe, because one was skinned alive, another X-shaped cross, and there's beheaded, and what are others? They all died pretty horrifically. John spoil and oil, he didn't die of it, but yeah, I think that's personally I think that's worse. Yeah, terrible deaths, and all they had to do to stop that is just say Jesus never rose or Jesus isn't God or something. Who what human in the right mind would or if it's all a lie? If it's all a lie, what human would die that horrific of a death and that painful of a death and stand by what that lie is? If that's not the truth, then what is? And I tell her that, and she's like, Man, I guess start doing some digging. And I'm like, Yeah, do you have a Bible? And she's like, Nope, I don't I need to get one though, and I'm like, I'll get you one by Friday. So I do that, and then Friday I get her a Bible. We start reading John, thanks to you. Yeah, you too, and nothing really stuffed, it was just reading and stuff. We got to John 3. What basically happened was she was like a little distracted, which can't blame her because there's a lot going on. I would read it out loud and then she would just ask any questions. But I told her to reread it at home and stuff, and I haven't heard from her actually, but it's okay. Did she have any questions when you got it? Uh yeah, I forget what the questions were exactly about John the Baptist and stuff like that, and how he's preparing the way, and I forget what the question was exactly. Oh, okay. Yeah. But she seemed into it. Yeah, it was something that she's definitely interested in. She did tell me though, she hates how the Bible's structured. Like why? Because it's not like a book, it's like a uh like an anthology. Yeah, just the text design of the Bible and how thin the pages are. And I'm like, yeah, it took me some getting used to.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

You know, that's really by the way, that's a very honest, that's a very honest comment. I really do appreciate that. And I think a lot of times in the church we can get used to the thin pages because you really do want it. It's a big book. Yeah, I have one around here, it's like that thick. It's a study Bible. They actually, this is a big thing recently where people are coming out with like really aesthetically pleasing typography and prints and all that. You ever heard of Alabaster? Nope. You should look up Alabaster Bibles. They have John, they do all the gospels and they've got the Psalms and a couple others, but they have it's all laid out with like really beautifully, great type, face, it's organized a little bit better. That's one of those open-handed issues, man. Like, yeah, it doesn't have to be that way. Yeah, that's an obstacle for you. As believers, we believe in beauty. We believe in so where's the stand with her right now?

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Right now, I haven't been to school, and I don't have avid at all this week. So yeah, I just haven't really talked to her.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

No, we've heard two, I don't want to call them success stories, but they're success stories, right? The gospel always lands. Yeah. What and this is I'm gonna take a little a teaching moment here. I think we've talked about this before, but a lot of people will say, what if the person doesn't get saved? I've I failed in my gospel presentation. You didn't fail. It's just like seed planting. Yeah, there's seed planting, right? But I think one of the things I've been thinking about a lot over the last year has been the dual-sided nature of the gospel. So the one obvious side of the gospel is to bring in those who are elect, right? To share the gospel with them, bring them into the kingdom that way. Uh, and we would consider that successful. And praise God, right? The angels celebrate, everyone celebrates when that happens. But then there's another aspect of the gospel I don't think most people talk about, and definitely most evangelists don't talk about the alternate purpose of the proclamation of the gospel is a it's a witness against that person. So think of it this way, right? I want you to picture the end of days, right? We're all standing for this big great white throne, Jesus is standing on the throne, everybody's getting judged for. And a person walks in front of God and says, Whoa, gives a defense for their life and says, Hey, I didn't know this. I didn't understand this. Now that I see, I believe, and all that. And Jesus is going to say, No, no, let me rewind to this day. An came up to you and gave a very good proclamation of the gospel. Yeah. It's not that you didn't understand it, it's not that you didn't believe it, it's that you refused it. You actually rejected it. All these other people came across your life to do that, and so it stands as a witness. And then what's really interesting about that is that think about it this way. It's almost like it's validating the justice of God. So if God says, no, I told you, right? And we know that's enough. Romans 1 says his the plain things about him are made plain to everybody, right? Namely his majesty and glory in Romans 1. Um, that's sufficient. But he's not, he's not that's not necessarily he's not happy with just that. He also sends evangelists and pastors and people that love on you, and and when the person brings levies the accusation on God and says, You didn't try hard enough to reach me, and he's like Ian's also a second witness there. Yeah, I I think that's one. If you hate someone, share the gospel with them. Because like, yeah, best case scenario they get to say, worst case scenario, you have to be part of their judgment. But Paul talks about that, and he's some people share the gospel out of selfish gain, some share it out of anger or whatever, right? But what do I care as long as the gospel is preached? But the encouragement that I have to evangelists is that when you step out in faith and you share the gospel with someone and you do it in a loving way and you do it properly and according to the spirit and all that, you never failed. You never failed. Yeah. There's another story that you told me recently that went a little bit differently. Yeah. Is that the like speaking of random people that come up to you and start conversations?

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Yes, I was at the library after school, just doing my homework on the and starts talking to me about abortion. If I support abortion, just out of the blue. She just walked up to you and was like, How do you feel about abortion? Yeah, hey, can I bother you for a second? And I'm like, Yeah, sure, of course. And she's like, Do you support abortion? And I'm like, So I was like, No. And why? And then we just had this debate about abortion, and I one of the things that made me want to cry was where I asked her, Do you wish you were aborted? Do you wish you were never given this life or a life to live? And she's yes, I wish I was aborted. And I'm like, Are we serious? That's insane. No. So then I start telling her, like, why I'm glad I wasn't aborted. Then you have a very personal relationship to that particular So I'm adopted and a little backstory. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. So I'm adopted in from South Korea. And on I don't know my bio mom or my bio dad. Apparently, it was like they met in a bar and then like the condom broke and here I am. But praise God. Yeah. But she very well could have aborted me and not put me up for adoption because in Korea, single moms are considered outcasts idiom. And so it would have been smarter for her to have aborted me and not had me, and just been like nothing ever happened. But she didn't. She chose to give me life and let me go to put me up for adoption, which I was upset at for a while because I was like, who in the right mind would willingly give up their kid? But now I'm glad because I have this family, met all you guys. But now because she put me up for adoption, I do have this family. Like my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister, my friends, Erin, a bunch of people that support me, and it wasn't always easy. Yeah, she didn't. She wished she was supportive. And how I'm and now I'm grateful that I wasn't, and two very different sides of the story, right? So then like I start giving reasons instead of asking her for her opinion or like how she why she feels that way. I start giving her all these reasons just throwing knowledge at her, just throwing. I'm not there listening or there for her, which is definitely an opportunity missed, but it's okay. I think I think she left more angry than like peaceful. And I definitely was worked up about it, but it's okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

Yeah. What how did this impact you coming out of this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

It really showed me that there's people that don't want to be here. They'd rather be dead. We believe in heaven or hell, right? But people they they don't know where they're going. And it really shook me. I'm like, not everybody wants to live.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

That seems to be the logical overflow of not having hope. One of the things that I've been doing a little bit more has been meditating on new creation. What would this world look like without sin? What would I do if I didn't have sin? What would I do if I couldn't die if I couldn't get hurt, you know. And I lived in this world. I've got a spot like Carmel by the Sea in California that I'm gonna go immediately, you know, the new creation.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:09

Have you ever read anything by C.S. Lewis?

SPEAKER_01 22:11

I started reading screw tape letters and then like start off strong. Yeah, and then I just dropped it because it's dark. Not only that, I'm not a very good reader.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

The reason why I brought that up was that he writes the story, and I forget which book it is, but he writes this story about these people in hell who get onto a bus and they go take a field trip to heaven. And um, they get to heaven, and right off the bat, when they get out of the bus, they are just annoyed by everything. They're annoyed by how green the grass is, the sun hurts their eyes, like it's not warm enough. They're like complaining the whole time. One of the people walks up to this gorgeous woman, this beautiful, radiant woman, there, right? And she's the person is so taken by this woman that they ask an angel who's right there, and they say, Hey, who was this woman on earth? Who was she in the past? Was she some sort of queen, big business executive or model or something like that? And the angel goes, actually, she was nothing you would ever look at. She was ugly, she was dirty, homeless, but she loved the Lord very deeply, and she was she loved others because of that love. And now you're just seeing her the way she always was, but you're you're seeing it in that way. And I really think that's a really countercultural message. You know, we live, we're called to live, not necessarily that we're called to live in such a way that we see the world. You watch The Matrix?

SPEAKER_01 23:49

No, my parents don't let me for a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Yeah, good parents, like when you're older, watch the matrix, right? Yeah. Okay. You're familiar with the plot of the movie? Yeah. Okay. So there's a scene where they're like sitting and looking at the computer screen inside, like outside the matrix, right? And there's all this code coming out of the green code, you've seen it, right? And Neo, who's played by Keanu Reeves, is staring in it. And he's the programmer, is looking at it, he's like, I don't even see the code anymore. I've been staring at this long enough that I just see blonde, brunette, redhead. It's a joke in the movie, right? But in a lot of ways, that's the way that we're called to see the world. Because we're told, like, hey, there's this thing that we see very clearly, but it's not necessarily indicative of what's true. And we're called to always remember that you're looking at the matrix. Not to be able to see the signs. I've been teaching through Mark recently, and a big theme is the upside-down kingdom. And so it's weird because the people who see Jesus the most clearly are the blind people in the book of Mark, and the people who understand the power of Jesus are the people who have no power. And then you it's contrasted with the disciples who are arguing about who's going to be the greatest. And and the Pharisees who can see and they're judging all the blind people are the people who are most blind to who Jesus is. And so there's ideas, this upside-down kingdom. And so when I hear this story of this lady coming up and how she's so broken, I mean heart breaks for her, right? Yeah. But also at the same time, you see her. I love I love when the rich young ruler comes up to Jesus and he's How can I receive the kingdom of heaven? And it says Jesus looked at him and loved him. How many times have we looked at someone and loved them? Shifting gears a little bit. One of the things that you've been helping neon, along with some of your your friends, is so Hood Shepherd is debuting Hood Shepherd for Teens. And this is just gospel resources to be able to help uh teens be able to evangelize other teens. That's in beta, it's not necessarily public yet. We'll notify you when it is public, but Ian has been one of those who's been looking at it. I'm just curious, what is your what are your thoughts on that? How would you reach your peers?

SPEAKER_01 26:20

I think it's an amazing resource. It's gonna help me and a bunch of my friends that do evangelize and stuff, or even people I don't even know. I think it's a great resource and how stink and like how the world thinks that we think and the struggles. Would you say it's have you read through any of the not all of it?

SPEAKER_03 26:41

I've read through there's 61 packets. One of the features that we built into this. So if you go to the normal Hood Shepherd page, what you will find is we've uh categorized people based off of where they live geographically. So the types of people that tend to live in your particular neighborhood are listed there along with resources to help you reach them. When I shared this with a couple youth pastors, they both said the same thing, which was that teens don't generally think geographically, they think socially, they think in terms of social networks. Their recommendation was why don't you do some sort of like chat bot that will like give them those resources? Now I said, I'm not crazy, I'm not doing teenagers in a chat bot, but what I was able to do was build this tool where you can describe the type of your friend that you want to share the gospel with, and it will link you up with one of the 61 archetypes of teenagers that we were able to identify and load into this. And it it goes the gamut. We've got everything from like military kids to divorced kids who have lost a parent, father, mother, homeschool kids, which is a whole different thing, athletes, trans, kids that are struggling. I think one of them is like undocumented kids is in there. So, like the unique challenges facing kids who are undocumented in this country. We try to write them from the point of view of a teenager for a teenager with teenage issues. And it's very simple. It's also short. It's essentially here's some of the stuff that might be behind the surface of this person. Here are things you can do to practically love on them in a way that's good news to them, here's things to definitely not do, and then here's a Bible story to share with them, and then just what to do with how they react to that. What kind of things does someone like you who loves Jesus, who loves their fellow students at their school, what kind of things would be helpful for you to be able to do that more?

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Listen. People just listen, like and me listening to people and people listening to me. Like you said it before, I am young today.

SPEAKER_03 28:47

How do I get people to listen to me?

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Like when I'm talking to older people, like not old, yes, old people, but like like your age and like adults, they just don't listen to me because they see me as a little baby, like a little kid that doesn't know what he's talking about, which is true.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

Sometimes I don't know what I'm talking about, and I just yeah, but I love how I ask you how can I help you evangelize and you talk about the problems you have evangelizing adults. And I was expecting you to say other kids your age and people I just evangelizing to other kids, it's easy.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

It's easy. You're going through the same thing, you're experiencing the same thing, they know what you're going through, you know what they're going through, or you can describe it to them. You can describe how they're going through. It's the adults.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Tell me, I think this is news to adults, pastors, etc., that it's easy to evangelize the other kids. Dig into that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Why it's hard to evangelize the adults or easy to evangelize? Easy to evangelize other kids. Okay. Because, like I said, I know what they're going through, or I have a familiar idea. Like we're growing up around the same time, like teenagers specifically, COVID hit around the same time. We know the COVID experience and all of that. We know phones are a huge problem. Everyone knows that, but kids like know it and they just don't do anything about it. I've been trying to do something about it, it's making me mad because like I have this experience where it's not the exact same as someone else. Like, my experience in my life is nowhere near the next person's experience, but we understand that. And I think just the way we talk is different too. So, how does it make it easier for you to share the gospel with them? Because, like, I know how to talk share it to them to get them to respond.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Tell me, take me into the process of you as an evangelist. I I know every evangelist is a little bit different how they do that.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Like my friends and stuff, it's asking them questions. Like, there's this one guy that comes up to you and he's my age, 17, almost 18, and he's what's a problem that I've been struggling with recently. Let's do motivation. Okay. Like, how do I get myself to be motivated more? And I'm like, what are you not motivated in? What's the problem with that? Just a basis to get to know it, right? And then school. But why aren't you motivated in school? Just easy questions to get them thinking and realize there's a deeper meaning behind it. And then once they realize that, it's either, oh, thank you, and they leave, or it's a they stay and you get to have a bigger conversation. It's like a green light, yeah. Yeah. And once you get that their brain working, it gradually either keep going or gradually down. So instead of relate it to the gospel and be like, So for motivation like school, why aren't you motivated in school senioritis? And then senioritis, it's just killing your whole mood, right? So what I would do is then take the mood part, not the senioritis, not the school, black all that out, take the mood part, and then bring up the mood part. Why is your mood bad? Why do are you not enjoying the way that your friends are? Why are you don't you like how you're being treated? Why don't you like this? And then it just gets deeper and deeper until the point where you can relate it to Jesus, and they're like, awesome. Yeah. I love it, man. Yeah. It's just a bunch of questions and listening. Also listen for cues. I don't know any specific ones, I just know when it happens. Just specific cues where they're either losing interest, so then you bring them back and bring up something new, or where they're being super interested to where you can stop asking questions that related back to Jesus right then and there.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

I spend a lot of time teaching people how to do exactly just that. So just I wanted to affirm you on that. This is it it it warms my heart to hear this. And you're right on the money when you're talking about it's just listening.

SPEAKER_02 33:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:01

There's a famous apologist, evangelist, his name is Francis Schaefer. And he said if I had an hour to share the gospel with someone, I'd spend 55 minutes listening. Yeah. And they'll tell you what they need. Because the gospel is good news to a person. Like, what's the best news for that person? And then how is that found in Jesus? And that's that's how you share the gospel with someone.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Yeah. And I've been like sometimes I'll get on rants and just start talking, which it's not the best. It does not always go well when that happens. Actually, with cadence, I went on a rant about Jehovah's Witnesses and how they're wrong. I completely botched that part. I was so wrong with all of it. Like, did but afterwards, did you go back and look up Jehovah's Witnesses? And then I texted her and I'm like, so you know how like all my Jehovah's Witness rants and how they're all wrong and all that. Yeah, that's not the reason why they're wrong. This is the reason why they're wrong and just said her.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

But see, that's great. And I think I don't think that's something that most evangelists understand as much. Is that uh when you do evangelism, you're going to mess up, you're going to get something wrong. Most people are like, I gotta do this right, I gotta be perfect and all that. No, no. The grace is there. I don't think Cadence was sitting at home being like, Oh, he was so wrong about the J Dub thing, right? Um, but you went back and you looked it up and you learned something, and then you went, you'll never forget that. And this is why I'm such a big proponent of evangelism as a discipleship tool. Because so many times, if you're around a church, the number one things that people are saying is, Oh, I wish I was praying more, I wish I could read my Bible more, I wish I I could see the power of God more, those types of things, which are all well and good. Yeah, but at the same time, I'm like, yo, dude, these things exist for a reason. They exist for witness, they exist for mission. And so when you go out there, you're when you have a conversation with someone and they bring something up and you don't know it, I guarantee you you're gonna go back and read your Bible. Yeah, when you feel like you're at the end of your rope with this person and you don't understand how to share the gospel with them, or you feel completely insufficient, you're going to pray. Yeah. You come across that person who seems to be the least likely possible to come to faith, and all of a sudden you see God do a miracle work in their heart. You're going to worship. They're going to worship. You're going to see the power of God made manifest there. I can't tell you how many times I've shown up to church on Sunday and everybody's praying and everybody's singing, and from the stage they're saying, like, oh Lord, we want to see your presence. We want you a new wave of revival. We want to see the book of Acts happen. All that. I'm like, bro, I'm exhausted from watching the book of Acts happen. I think I'm good with that. It's happening. It's been happening all week. It's just been happening here. Like, where were you? So that's my desire for others. Hey guys, come out. There's so much of this out there. Come out on this adventure. And I'm just so excited to hear these stories of people like you, and there's so many others who have tasted that. And I think I've told you this before. There have been plenty of other people who told me these stories of their evangelism. And I'm like, so now you get it. Yeah. Now you get that feeling. Now you get that rush.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

Yeah. After Henry, it's been like a non-stop, I need it. I'm addicted to it. Oh, praise God. Yeah. It's just been like, I don't know. There are days where I'm just not in the mood, and then there's days pops up and I'm I miss opportunities. It's not like I'm like always, oh, this always there for someone. Yes, I tried to be, I want to be, but it's just not always there. There's days where I'm just not there and don't care.

SPEAKER_03 36:40

I heard I was taking a class in seminary on evangelism, and we had a guest speaker who's a pastor at a church in Atlanta, and he's apparently a big-time evangelist. And he said something really helpful. I think it was very affirming for me. He said, he goes, I'm an evangelist. He goes, but most people think that being an evangelist means you're always telling people about Jesus. He goes, That's not true. He's there are days where I wake up, I don't want to talk to anybody. He goes, there are days I just want to go see a movie, and I don't, there are days when I just want to relax on the beach. He goes, being an evangelist isn't necessarily sharing the gospel with people constantly. What being evangelist means is that you're constantly aware of the lost. And I think that's a really good permission that most people haven't really heard. It's definitely been comforting to me. I hope it's comforting to you.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

No, that definitely helped a lot. Just right now, I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

So what's next for you, man? What are your senior?

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Where are you going? So I'm going to White Sulfur Springs for this Excel internship. It's run by OCF Officer Christian Fellowship. And there I'm going to be learning about biblical theology, taking some classes for some college credit, right? And then I also do trade. But the whole purpose of that is to find out where God's calling you. Because before I found this, I was gonna just enlist in the Navy. And I wanted to be a mechanic, but I'm I don't know how to do any of that yet. They'll teach you how to do that. They'll teach me how to do that. But realistically, right now I'd be an infantry man. I'd just be on the ground shooting people. And I'm like, is that really what I want to do for the next four years of my life? So I did it. Yeah. Shooting people, but like maybe for a while, yeah. Yeah. That's cool though. It's something cool. Mine would just be like, yeah, shooting a gun is a great thing. You could go fix planes. Wipe salt for springs is an awesome choice. At the same time, I'm feeling just calling to do something else. Like something that it might be like missionary, it might be like that, or it could be like still going into the military, still doing building planes and stuff, but also being able, being equipped, being able to evangelize in my workplace and then work from there, right? And I feel like I don't know yet. So this is kind of like a gap year, slash like figure it out, slash like keep going here, where I'm figuring all this out. And White Sulfur Springs is amazing, it's huge and like awesome. And the people there, they're all military people, so they can help me with the military process.

SPEAKER_03 39:20

And yeah, you don't need to.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:24

I'm pulling for you, man. I'm very encouraged to see the witness that you've been faithful to do. It's been so cool to see you grow. I've known him for a while. It's been so good to see how God's been shaping your life and changing your heart. But I was in Kenya and somebody came up to me and they said, Ian just let a dude to the Lord on the bus. And I was like, Where was I? I just wanted to leave you with a little bit of encouragement, man. You're doing things, you've been called into an adventure that most adults have never even experienced. And uh I just want to encourage you in that. And I think all of us here at Hood Shepherd are really excited to see where you're gonna end up. I appreciate that. Thank you. If this is your first time listening to anything about the Hood Shepherd, you can check us out at thehoodshepherd.com and find out what your neighborhood personality is and find out how to share the gospel with your neighbors. But if you happen to be a church planter or a missionary or someone who wants to take a little bit more of a pastoral view, check us out at gospelgraph.com where you can find a load of really interesting church planting and ministry intelligence tools. Till next time, I'm Aaron Rosa, I'm the Hood Shepherd, and uh see you out on the streets.