The Public-Schooled Christian

Hey guys! For today’s post I interviewed my friend Julia from school.

Hi Julia! Could you tell us a little bit about your testimony?

My family goes to a methodist church and I’ve gone to this church my entire life because we’ve never moved. So I’ve only ever gone to church and have always gone to one church. That’s about it.

Yeah! You grew up in the church. It’s the thing with me and a lot of other people. How do you form relationships with people in school (that’s something I’ve noticed you’re good at) and how do you share Jesus’ light with people?

It’s important to have a good solid group of Christian friends because your five closest friends are you, but at the same time, you can’t only have those friends. It’s good the bigger your bubble is and the more you reach out to people. Even if someone isn’t Christian, that’s not a reason for you not to be friends with them. Relationships are how you spread the Gospel and show Jesus to those who aren’t Christian. 

If you’re building bridges and have connections with people and then introduce Jesus it makes them more accepting because they already know you as a person. If I was on the side of the street with a sign and trying to share the gospel it wouldn’t be as effective as having a relationship with someone beforehand and then sharing Jesus with people.

It’s important to tell people about Jesus but your actions have to show who Jesus is, too. People will notice how you live your life differently because you’re a Christian.

Yeah. I’ve been reading about that, about pre-evangelism. It’s not effective to go up to someone and be like, “Hey, this is Jesus! Believe in Him and you’ll be saved.” You have to build bridges and then people will realize, “The reason this person is different is because of their faith.”

Yeah. And the more people get to know you the more they realize how your faith changes you. 

How do you set your mind on things above like Philippians 4:8 says while you’re at school?

Memorizing scripture helps for sure because the more you memorize scripture the more God’s word is engraved in you. It’s good to catch yourself reciting scripture in your head. What do you think?

I think the same thing. Memorizing scripture helps, and so does making a plan for school. There are times when I go through the school day just to get through it and I come home and realize it’s a bit of a waste if I’m going through the day just to finish it.

But sometimes on Sunday nights before school I’ll tell myself, “Okay, at school tomorrow, I want to make sure to do something nice for this person.” And sometimes I make a plan to bring up Jesus in conversation with someone, like bringing up the fact that I went to church over the weekend.

Sometimes having a trigger to think about God helps me set my mind on Him, too. For example, I’ll tell myself “Every time I go to the bathroom at school today I’m going to pray while I’m walking to the bathroom.”

I feel like it’s also important to pray for other people throughout the day. Whenever I see someone and it looks like they’re having a really bad day or I’ll hear an ambulance or something like that, my mind goes to prayer. Because prayer stops me from thinking about myself. 

Yeah, it’s really easy to become self focused instead of others and God-focused and prayer can help. Do you have any stories of things that have happened in school relating to your faith?

Something I’ve noticed happening a lot is that, for example, I’ll be talking to someone I don’t know very well. We’re friends but they are someone new that I just met recently. So I’ll be talking to her and I’ll mention what I did over the weekend. I’ll say, “Oh, I went to church, and then I went to youth group,” and then she’ll say “I went to church too!“ and we’ll start talking. 

It’s very reassuring to know there are other Christians in school. And you don’t really know that there are other Christians unless you put yourself out there and just talk to people. It’s very comforting to know and it’s just very nice meeting other Christians in school. 

I agree. It makes school a lot better and it makes it a lot easier to follow Christ because you realize, “I’m not the only one who has these values and disagrees with that conversation happening over there.”

Do you have any last advice for public-schooled Christians?

Galatians 5:16 says “And I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” I think walking with the Holy Spirit throughout the day is important. Like John 15:5 says, “I am the vine and you are the branches. If you abide in me and in my love you will bear much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing.” 

I think it’s important for us to stay focused on God because we need God throughout our day and the second we decide that we can do something on our own is when it’s all going to fall apart. Walking with the Spirit and being a vessel for God is the best thing you can do for yourself. Having the Holy Spirit in your heart just makes life so much better and with God we can have true joy.