Fishing in the Public School Pond

Although fishing is not my favorite hobby I’ve done a lot of it. My grandpa was a fisherman and he took me often when I was young. He taught me all of the basics of fishing: what kind of bait or lures to use in certain situations, the best times of day to fish and, of course, how to gut a fish once you catch one. But the most important lesson he taught me is that if you want to catch a fish you have to go where they are. If there’s no fish in a pond there will be none in your frying pan.

EvangelismWhat’s true of fishing for fish is also true of fishing for teenagers. Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 4:19, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” And, as I just heard a youth ministry leader say, “Fish travel in schools.”

If you want to “catch” teenagers for Christ then you must go to the ponds where they are swimming 7+ hours a day, the public school campus. And the number of fish in America to catch is quite large. There are over 24,000,000 teenagers, most of whom go to one of over 69,000 high schools and middle schools.

Although these numbers are staggering and could seem overwhelming there are 3 action steps youth leaders can take to make the dream of catching massive amounts of teenagers for Christ possible. To read more, click here.