This last Friday was a fun one. I was invited to be a speaker at Sandra Day O’Connor High School’s Prevention Day. The school brought in multiple speakers to present on topics like suicide, trafficking, and bullying. It is always exciting speaking to students, but even more exciting when their school has a Red Light Rebellion club already on campus!

The Vice President of the club was able to speak at the end with me to encourage students to take the cause seriously. The group of students who attended the session were very responsive, and it was evident they were personally impacted by the presentation. One young man found me afterward, shook my hand, raved about the presentation, signed up for the club, and asked to buy my t-shirt! He was stoked to join the movement!

After the presentations, the school brought in food trucks, a DJ, and gave organizations and campus clubs information tables. This was an exciting time because I ended up getting a free mango drink that came in a GIANT mason jar! My life was almost made. But, what brought me the most joy was seeing how stoked the girls running the club were about the event! When I walked up to the RLR table it was high energy!  They were grabbing as many flyers as they could, running up to every group of students telling them to join, taking down names and numbers for sign ups, inviting people to the next meeting, not once taking ‘no’ for an answer… simply going buck wild!

I think they kind of thought the event was for them! They owned it like it was!

Actually, I take that back, they made it about them! And they rocked it!

They were not afraid of rejection, did not ask permission for what they were doing, were prepared, and talked to everyone who did (and did not) make eye contact with them. It was evident there was not a thought in their mind that it should not have been that way. The only expectation they had was to do what they did. And they did it with excellence!

I was so proud of them! Proud of them for taking ownership when it was not expected, for displaying leadership and excitement, and challenging their peers with abandon rather than hesitation.

Reflecting on this, I have to ask myself: what things do I need to approach the same way these girls approached Prevention Day?

What things do you need to approach this way?

What if the Gospel was approached this way by every professing believer? Can you imagine the intimacy we would have with Christ? The amount of brand new testimonies we would hear about? The sacrifices and provision that would abound? The movements of the Spirit that would happen?

This is convicting for me, because I do not approach the Gospel like this. I’ve gotten caught up in this “justice movement” of sorts. It is where the focus is on doing tangible justice to demonstrate the Gospel, yet never speaking the Gospel. Can that still be the Gospel? And what is justice without the Gospel? Not much.

But I’m about to get into something that deserves its own blog entry, or two, to discuss. So I will leave it here, with those thoughts to ponder. Schools, students, clubs, justice, and Gospel.

Before we go though, take a second to read that last sentence again. Do you see the struggle? (#) Do you see the balancing act we have to do with these programs? The first word and the last word. It is futile without the Gospel, yet the Gospel is banned. To add to the tension, the Spirit has been saying most consistently lately that: the Gospel is prevention.

~Breanna Vales