they don't look like "church" people

just got home from our wednesday evening service. we all meet together as a church eat dinner together and then have a message. the adults are going through a book, "intercessory prayer" by dutch sheets
the middle and high school kids go with me over to the youth house and i have a teaching portion and age-specific discussion groups with them. we are going through jim cymbala's "break-through prayer".

during the beginning of the teaching time we watch a testimony from jim cymbala's church-incredible stories of troubled men and women who have turned their lives over to the power of God. the whole time i was muttering, "lord open their hearts, touch them, rid them of distraction, open their hearts" OVER AND OVER AGAIN. as we were watching it, 5 teens from the street walked into the house. i told them to grab a seat around them and join in. all my other kids "the regulars" got a little tense and suspicious. we had never seen them before, i knew god was going to do something.
after the testimony we split up into high school and middle school age-specific groups the guys were college aged, so i asked if they would help me with the middle school

-they happily agreed-

hmmmm, ok God, don't know where you are taking this
i planned questions and discussion about prayer, the video, and verses in the Bible. so we started talking openly about prayer-one of the college guys spoke up, really challenging our belief in God, the power of his presence, etc. he asked really good questions- what is your view of god, do you believe in his power, etc. the kids shared, and talked about those things, the discussion proceeded and eventually the boys had to leave to catch a bus going to marysville.

when they left the room erupted: my middle schoolers said: they don't look like "church" people, they smelled bad, i disagreed with what they said, etc.
i used this as a teachable moment-only the Lord could of provided this series of events to provide a relevant message. the questions these college kids were asking were some of the questions my kids never felt like they could ask, because they were"Christians"-it really forced them to think about their own faith and to test it by conversing with these kids who were challenging their faith and beliefs. i also challenged them in their assumptions of the college students, what does christian look like, why do you have these stereotypes, are you willing to look outside your own life and what is comfortable and "normal" to you and accept others, do you believe that broken people can be transformed by the holy spirit-no matter what they look like...and so it went, God turned this regular routine teaching time into an interactive and challenging exercise for my little kiddies :)