Street Stories - A Ringside Seat To Over 4 Decades Of Taking Jesus To The Streets Of The World

I was sitting in a lawn chair on the parking lot when the church van pulled up with the rag-tag bunch of teenagers from the courthouse square. I later dubbed them The City Kids. As the van door swung open, the kids jockeyed for position to be the first ones out to have some of the great food we had promised them. There they were in all their punk-rock and rebellious glory. The leader, Phil, had on a black leather jacket, a chain around his waist and some well-placed tattoos. Three other boys piled out wearing combat boots and flannel shirts that spoke of the style of the popular music scene exploding across the world from the Pacific Northwest. Three girls piled out with piercings in their noses, eyebrows, and lips, sporting green and shocking purple hair. Then, last to exit the van was Goldilocks, a young teenaged boy with fair skin, shoulder length curly blonde hair and a soft-spoken demeanor. Goldilocks seemed different from the other brash and edgy City Kids. I got the sense he didn’t really belong with them. He had not yet become hard and jaded. Nearby me on the church parking lot as The City Kids piled out was the church ’s Youth Pastor. He had been telling me for a few days that he had really been praying about building the church ’s small youth group up and growing it to a large bunch of kids to minister to and disciple. As The City Kids approached the Maranatha church members who were eager and ready to begin serving them food, I kind of elbowed him and said, “There’s your new Youth Group. Go get ‘em.”

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