Do you know any pregnant teenagers? Chances are good that you do. Apparently, teenage pregnancy is on the rise this year, and some sociologists believe it may have something to do with the movies “Knocked Up” and “Juno” which portrayed two young women who became pregnant and decided not to abort. I don’t know if sociologists are right on this or not.

However, in a recent article in TIME magazine called “Postcard: Gloucester” (June 30, 2008, p. 8), it was reported that Gloucester (MA) High School is seeing four times the number of teenage pregnancies as last year. Initially, “some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. …[But] School officials started looking into the matter…after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant” with many of the girls repeatedly returning for multiple tests, and acting disappointed when they found out they were not pregnant.

It was soon discovered that many of the female students had made a pact with each other to get pregnant and raise their babies together.

Why would they do such a thing?

One student, a girl named Ireland who got pregnant as a freshman, said “They’re so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally.”

Are you loving other people unconditionally? It may be one of the greatest needs in our society today.

I know many of you have been praying for me, so I just wanted to update everybody and let you know that I got a job. It’s not glamorous, but it pays the bills (some of them at least!). I am learning to clean carpets. I work 12-14 hour days, five days a week (which will probably hinder my blogging ability). The job pays $10 an hour, but it is all I could get right now.

The company I am working for is called ZeroRez, and it is state-of-the-art, zero residue, green carpet cleaning. It doesn’t use soaps and chemicals, and it removes 95% of the moisture (others cleaners only remove about 70%) so it dries faster. And to top it off, there is no other carpet cleaning company in the world that cleans as well OR as green. If you live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and want to get your carpets cleaned, go with ZeroRez. Of course, wait until I become a tech, so I will be able to come out and do it for you.

The most exciting thing about the job is who I am working with. Most of them are Mormons. As I rode around in the truck today, I was able to talk for two hours or more with a great young guy named Seth. We talked about the beliefs and popular misconceptions regarding Mormonism, and I look forward to talking with him more.

I used to think that the best way to evangelize was to preach in churches. I figured that most “Christians” were not actually “saved” and so needed to hear the “true gospel” (as preached by me), and once they believed it, they would then become “true believers.”

In other words, I thought that the most fertile soil for evangelism in the United States was among those who were already in churches. I saw the US as a mission field, and churches as the primary location to sew the seeds of the gospel.

As I have developed a missionary mindset, this thinking has changed. While I certainly believe that the US is a mission field, and while I do believe that there are many, many people who go to Christian churches who have not believed in Jesus for eternal life, I have found that the most common result of telling church goers that they might not be saved is a lot of angry church goers. 

I think that the average person in the average church, even if they don’t believe in Jesus for eternal life, are not very receptive or open to anything I might be able to tell them. If they don’t believe in Jesus, but they do attend church, they are likely to have a “Pharisaical” mindset, and therefore, it is almost a complete waste of time, money, and energy to pursue them.

The much more fertile soil in the US are those who would never darken the door of any church in the US. They are the ones I am hoping to reach, and who are receptive to talking about Jesus, and His promise of eternal life to those who believe in Him for it. Trying to tell this message to people in churches seems to do very little except split churches.

So who are you talking to about the free offer of eternal life through faith in Jesus? Are they primarily “churched” people? If so, how’s that working out for you? Have you seen any “conversions” recently? How about church splits and angry board meetings? I’d say that if as a result of what you’ve said, you’ve made more people angry than you have seen people come to faith in Jesus, you’re probably sewing seeds on the wrong soil.