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I'm homeschooled and my social life pretty much revolves around my church and youth group. So it would be easy for me to think I don't have any opportunities to share Christ. But I've had three separate experiences that have helped me see that's not true.

The first experience happened during my freshman year in high school. One Sunday morning, my youth pastor gave us this challenge: "I want you to witness to one person this week." The thought of sharing my faith scared me to death, but I decided to take him up on his challenge.

I also decided I'd make my first witnessing experience as painless as possible. What I did was pray and then go online. I was Instant Messaging some friends when I got an IM from this guy who was my brother's friend. After we IMed back and forth awhile, I decided it was time to bring up faith. I asked him where he thought he'd go when he died. It was pretty bold and blunt of me, but I knew I needed to start somewhere. It turned out that he was a Christian who knew he'd go to heaven when he died. I know the experience may seem like such a little thing, and it hardly looks like any kind of "witnessing success story." But, really, for me it was an important first "baby step" in sharing Christ.

The second experience happened because I chose to join my youth group's visitation team. As part of the team, it was my job to go out with a couple of my friends and visit teens who were new to our church. (People express interest in a visit by filling out a "visitor's card" and putting it in the collection plate.) Our youth pastor said our conversations during these visits could easily turn into opportunities to share our faith. That's what happened when Lauren, Jordan and I visited a guy named Paul.

As the three of us talked to Paul, we soon discovered he wasn't a Christian. When he showed interest in learning about how to know Christ, Jordan began sharing the gospel. But he soon stopped talking. His mind just went blank! He looked at Lauren and me. Since Lauren didn't say anything, I tried to take over where Jordan left off. But my own mind soon went blank! I looked at Jordan and he took over. We went back and forth like that the whole time we talked to Paul. I was pretty sure we weren't communicating at all and that we'd failed at sharing the message of salvation. Well, guess what? Paul ended up praying to ask Jesus to be his Lord and Savior! This whole experience showed me that God is the one who does the saving. And even when I feel like I blow it, God can still do great things.

The third experience took place not too long ago when I decided to take some classes at a local community college. This was great because it gave me a chance to get outside my little world and meet a lot of new people. The first people I got to know were some kids from a local high school. They'd come to the college to take a few classes their school didn't offer. I ended up taking classes with most of them, including a guy named Jason*. A few weeks into the semester, I handed him a flyer about an outreach event my youth group was holding.

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