I wish you could have been there to see some of the people who stood to acknowledge Christ…if you’d only seen it, you might have been able to understand why the friends of these guys and girls were dumbfounded (and maybe disgusted) at their friend’s decision.

Let’s imagine if it was you and your friend. You come into this conference and you’re both non-Christians. Wouldn’t it come as a complete shock that your best friend suddenly decides to follow an entirely different lifestyle after just one meeting and what (you thought) were just some meaningless words about ‘that guy, Jesus’?

I don’t know you, Jeff, or your personal beliefs about God, Christ, or Christianity itself. But maybe, just maybe, instead of seeing what these guys and girls did as a ‘cultish move’ to announce themselves openly as believing in something that looks foolish to most people, maybe you could see it as the bravest and gutsiest thing these people have ever tried. They’re the ones who had to face their friends ridicule after the conference and on the ride home. They’re the ones who will have to explain their ‘rash decision’ to family and schoolmates. And they may never even get support months after we’ve forgotten their names and have left them off of our ‘remember to pray for’ lists.
Foolishness, yes, to most people. But I never could have done what they did.