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One day, while I was still in middle school, I passed this church on my way to a local park. There was a bunch of kids standing in the church's lawn, and one of them looked my way and shouted, "Hi, my name's Amanda. What's your name?" I stopped, introduced myself and started talking to Amanda and her friends.

For me, that was the beginning of my journey to faith in Christ. It was also my first lesson in evangelism. As simple as it sounds, I've come to believe that a friendly smile and kind hello can show people God's love—and even help them start on their own journey to God.

Amanda's hello also taught me to never "judge a book by its cover." By the way I looked, and by the people I hung out with, some Christians might have thought I was a lost cause. But Amanda didn't let my tough appearance get in the way. Her friendliness that day made me stop and talk to her. It also caused me to start coming to her church. Amanda accepted me and believed that I could come into a relationship with God. Her caring attitude that day helps me see how important it is to keep reaching out to my old friends. They need to come to Christ—just like I did.

When I first started witnessing to my old friends, they rolled their eyes, called me a Jesus freak, and pretty much pushed me out of their lives. But not everybody acted that way. Some of my friends seemed to put up with all my talk about God and church. A few friends even seemed interested in finding out about my changed life. Angela* is one of those friends.

Not long after I committed my life to Christ, I went up to Angela and just blurted out, "Dude, you should come to youth group with me! It's cool, not boring, and you can learn about Jesus!"

Probably wasn't the best approach. But it worked.

Angela said, "Yeah, I'll try it."

And she did. She even had a chance to meet and talk to our youth leaders, John and Heidi. She started coming regularly, too, and eventually made the decision to accept Christ as her Savior. This really made me happy, because Angela had a lot of struggles. She partied quite a bit. And she also would get down and depressed and then cut herself. But Christ has really changed her life and she no longer cuts or parties with her old friends. I'm so glad I told Angela about my youth group and about Jesus. Seeing her life change showed me that God could use me to help my hurting friends.

I guess I've also learned that God is the one who changes people, not me. There's this part of the Bible that says a lot to me about telling my friends about God. It's in Matthew 13. Jesus tells a story about sowing seeds. He says that those seeds sometimes fall on bad ground and die away. Other times, the seeds fall on good ground and grow. The seed is like the Word of God and sometimes people allow it to come in and change their lives. Other times, they end up rejecting it. As a Christian, I need to be out there planting seeds as much as I can. I know some people will reject what I say. But that doesn't matter. I need to keep planting seeds, because who knows how God will use those seeds I plant?

Amber Curry, a sophomore, received evangelism training from Dare 2 Share, an organization dedicated to helping Christian students witness to their friends. To learn more, go to dare2share.org.

*Names have been changed

Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Ignite Your Faith magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Ignite Your Faith.

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