East Alabama YFC

Just got back from the East Alabama Youth for Christ Banquet.  it's their annual fundraising banquet and I get invited because I worked with them as a Campus Life Director for a few months while we were  beginning to plant Journey.  I love YFC and what they do for teenagers that don't "fit" into a normal church youth ministry setting.   This year's banquet was great.  The main speaker was Bill Muir, writer, director, producer and YFC dude for 30 years... He's an amazing storyteller and I'm telling you now, if you go to Journey and you heard his talk... you're going to hear it again... I'm going to rip it off!  It was that good.  He told the story of the Good Samaritan, my favorite story in the bible.  He mentioned that we see people (I think he said teenagers, but I was already thinking how I could use this in a broader context with all our people) in 5 different ways... Here they are:
1.  The Expert in the Law saw the man as a Topic to be discussed.
2.  The Robbers saw the man as a Target to be Exploited.
3.  The Priest and Levite saw the man as a Problem to be avoided.
4.  The Innkeeper saw the man as a Customer to be served.
5.  The Samaritan saw the man as a Person to be loved.

I know this sounds old school church with points and all, but, man... He was right on the money.  We see people through those lenses every day... Over the next few days, I'm going to chew on this and I'll post more thought on each one.    But for now, I'm going to kiss my kids goodnight!