Jesus and The Thuglife

So I am youth pastor at a small church in an extremely small town in southern Oklahoma. We have roughly 40 students regularly coming on a Wednesday night, most of our kids are fairly descent and don’t cause much problems. Two weeks ago we had four "thuglife" kids show up. These “thuglife” kids were pretty rough around the edges and after I got to talking with them it was evident they had been in trouble with the law. When I first found out they had came to church I honestly hoped that they wouldn’t stick around long. I approached them and they acted as I expected, making fun of me and acting too cool for school. I continued to pursue a casual conversation and invited them in to eat. They ended up coming in, eating, and attending our Wednesday night worship. Ironically those four “thuglife” kids paid better attention than some of the best of my regular students.

Last week the “thuglife” came back and invited two other friends. I chatted with the second timers and got to know the newbies a little before worship began. After church a couple of the newbies started smoking, (some of my kids started freaking out, like they never seen a cigarette before.) Anyways, I approached them and asked them to not smoke as long as they were on the property. As I allowed them to finish their cigarette (two of them were 18) I asked them what they thought about church. One responded, "its the coolest church I’ve been to", I asked why and he said because we didn't judge him and force anything on him. At that moment I felt both extreme happiness and a punch in the face! I was super stoked that he felt loved and accepted yet I at the same time I was the one who judged him! I proceeded to share with him that Jesus is who we follow and Jesus says that the world will know us by our love for one another. As we began to walk back to the church one of the guys asked me to pray for him and his grandfather who has cancer.

The past few days, I have been sharing this story with a very different point to get across but now, I share it; confessing my sin and realizing that it was not only him that I was sharing the Gospel with but also myself.

I need the Gospel just as much as the thuglife needs the Gospel!