338 When the youth leader stopped the fun and games

As Christian tells it, the new youth leader, Wayne, stopped all the shallow stuff and threw the youth group into the deep end of the pool, with word by word Bible study.

"Within a matter of weeks, attendence dwindled to 2 or 3 of us hardy souls who where willing to endure potential embarrassment for the sake of learning how to study the Scriptures. As you might guess, parents in the church were in an uproar because their kids refused to attend. But they couldn't fire Wayne, because a) they hadn't hired him in the first place, and b) no one else wanted to lead the youth group (for all their spiritual disinterest, the kids in our group were serious pros at burning through volunteer youth leaders as if they were substitute teachers).

So even though just about everyone in the church was seriously dissatisfied (except for the 2 or 3 of use who actually wanted to learn how to study the Bible), Wayne stayed on.

And then something truly remarkable started happening, something no one expected.

Kids started showing up. They didn't go to our church (many of them didn't go to any church). A lot of them weren't Christians. But they were fascinated to hear this Wayne guy unpack God's Word in a way that challenged everything their lives were about.

So they came. And they brought their friends. And those friends brought their friends. And within about a year and a half, we had over 100 kids showing up every week for an hour and a half Bible study."

Read the rest of the story here. It doesn't always turn out as you would expect.