Ask Jessie / I have a bunch of friends that are not Christians. I try to get them to come to my youth group, and I try to be a good example, but it just feels like nothing I do is working. What should I do?

I'm proud of you for wanting and trying to be a good example for your non-Christian friends. It's not easy, I know! Since I don't know you or your friends, I can only give general advice, but I'd say you have two options.

Option 1: If you feel like you're steady in your Christian faith and have other Christian friends that you can hang out with to get "recharged" spiritually, then keep trying to work on your non-Christian friends and be a good influence on them, hoping that eventually they'll get the message.

Option 2: If you sense that these non-Christian friends are being more of a bad influence on you than the other way around, or if you don't have other solid Christian friends to help "sharpen" you spiritually, then it may be best to stop hanging out with the non-Christian friends altogether. Your growth and health spiritually is super important in high school.

Saving your non-Christian friends is important, too, don't get me wrong. But if they aren't responding to your attempts to help them, there's only so much you can do.

Love,
Jessie

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