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I had a very pleasant surprise this weekend: I got to see Shane Claiborne speak!

I received a text in the middle of the week from a friend advising me Shane was going to be speaking at Drury University on Sunday. If you haven't heard of Shane, he is an author and a follower of Christ who is living out his faith in an intentional community in the poorest neighborhood in Philadelphia. His writings and lifestyle have served to challenge me in many ways over the past few years. You can learn more about Shane and his community here.

So I talked to my small group of young men about it and we decided we would go...but I guess the word got out because about twelve young people showed up to come to the event.

So we loaded up the bus and headed to Drury.

I'll share with you some of the words from Shane that really caught my attention in a moment, but first I want to talk about this group of young people who went with me.

First of all, it was exciting that they were interested enough to go sit through a service just to hear this guy speak. Secondly, they were very polite and considerate everywhere we went that day, even when others were not so. Also, they were excited enough about what was going on that they invited friends to join us. (There were like five or six people they got to meet us there!) And afterwards they wanted to have a discussion of what Shane said to try to apply it to their life.

These are high school students mind you.

I am encouraged to see a growing group of young people who are living differently from their peers. Let's pray that their culture of hunger for God's Truth in their lives and the desire to share that with others in a loving way would continue to spread.

Now, about Shane. Here are some of the things he said that stood out to me:

"Evangelism is spread best - not by force - but by fascination."

"Do people 'see and hear' Christ in my life?"

"People need to know we are Christians - not by our bumper stickers and t-shirts - but by our love."

"That was back when I thought church is what happened on Sunday. Back before I knew better."

"We may not have the answer - the silver bullet. But maybe we can be part of the silver buckshot."

(quoting an Iraqi Christian bishop speaking to Shane of the American church) "You didn't create Christianity in America. You only domesticated it."

Let me know your thoughts on Shane's thoughts. And may we, as the young people who went with me, wrestle through how God would have us respond. God bless & peace.