I’ve always grown up in the church and it is something I have come to love over the years. But the last thing God wants us to do is to drift away from Him and His people. I experienced something like in the middle of my high school life. Friends can be the easiest gateway to evangelize your faith. But friends are also the easiest way for you to lose your faith. In scripture, God gives us guidelines and principles to live by. And these are different or odd lifestyle from the society we live in today. The friends I chose for a certain part of time were a slight downfall in my walk with God.

Most of you might not have noticed because I still attended church and loved God on Sundays and Wednesdays. But outside of the church, I wasn’t increasing my passion for following God. This had to do with friends in high school. I didn’t share my faith with them or discuss my relationship with God. This led to my plateau of growing in Jesus. One of my favorite sayings is, “There is always room for improvement”. But yet I wasn’t living out that in my personal spiritual life. So after coming to that realization, I started including more people from Refresh into my daily life and became closer to them. This change brought me out of my spiritual slump. Now I have such great influences in my life.

So that is just my big encouragement to you all. This youth group is full of amazing people able to do amazing things in life. Reach out and find someone you have seen in youth and truly give them an opportunity to become a close friend. Tell them what you struggle with. Have your friendship turn into accountability group with more people and keep each other growing in Christ instead of drifting away. I love you all and thank you for making my youth group the best youth group.