Landon Roberts is an example of how God can use a willing high school student to reach peers for Christ, pointing them to the reality that Jesus is worthy of their commitment, Lisa Barnett told The Alabama Baptist.
Barnett was so impressed with Roberts that she wanted her state Baptist newspaper to know about him, how “he’s just a remarkable kid.”
What makes Roberts stand out, she said, is that he graduated a semester early from high school last month while working a full-time job, leading groups at church and running a side business.
Though he is athletic, Roberts gave up participation in sports in order to help support himself financially, Barnett said. Both are members of Boldo First Baptist Church in Jasper.
Roberts works for a hardscapes company installing outdoor sprinkler systems, patios, retaining walls and such, he said, and he earned enough money to purchase equipment for his own lawn care business.
“Although he’s doing that, his real passion is sharing Jesus,” Barnett said. “He teaches a Sunday School class for middle schoolers at our church.”
Passion for sharing Jesus
As a student at Cordova High School, Roberts was discouraged by the lack of turnout at a Christian club, and it seemed that teens just weren’t getting up early enough to attend. To accommodate their schedules, Roberts started meeting with about five peers at night in the parking lot of the local hospital.
“He brought his guitar and they started singing,” Barnett said.
The group met at a restaurant for a while, and then Barnett and her husband, Barry, who works with the youth group at church, asked why the group of teens wasn’t meeting at the church. Roberts’ response: “They aren’t church kids yet.”
A church building would be foreign to the students, and they might feel too uncomfortable to attend, Roberts surmised. The Barnetts offered their unfinished basement — sort of an unused rec room — for the students to use regularly.
Students will start driving up to the house around 4:30 p.m., Barnett said, and they’ll stay about four hours. They’ll worship, pray, study the Bible and maybe eat pizza.
“We think about going to worship at church for two hours, and we think we’ve done a good deed,” Barnett said of churchgoers, noting the dedication of the student group.
‘Just minister’
When a couple of Mormon missionaries canvassed the neighborhood, some residents were tempted to hide or dispense with them quickly, but Roberts engaged them more than once, Barnett said.
“He went out on the porch and talked with them,” she said. “He talked to them long enough to get their names and invite them to Bible study, and they came — I think twice. That’s just another way this kid is really special.”
Roberts’ story might encourage other students who feel alone in their high schools, said Barnett, a retired teacher. “Just go out and do it. Just invite a friend, one at a time, and then just minister.”
Roberts was concerned about his friends at school and then found a way, Barnett said. “He’s been consistent with it for two years. I think there’s been fruit from his labor.
“He’s very unique. He’s careful about what he listens to, what he watches. On Wednesday nights he’ll play games with elementary students. He has a heart for people. He’s so passionate and so dedicated,” Barnett said.
‘Set an example for the believers …”
“He’s one of a few kids out there who see a need, care about their fellow students enough to make a relationship and find a place that they’re comfortable in to share the gospel with them. That place isn’t always the church. It can be a parking lot. It can be your front yard or your porch, or it can be a basement with your guitar,” she said.
For his part, Roberts said he owes everything to God. When asked about his motivation to share Christ, he asked, “What reason do I have not to share?”
Some of the friends in his Bible study go to church and some don’t.
“Some of them might have had a bad experience with the church when they were younger, and the best thing you can do is bring Jesus to them and help them know that even if they had a bad experience, that wasn’t Jesus,” Roberts said. “That was Christians, and we all fall and mess up.”
A verse he tries to live by, he said, is 1 Timothy 4:12: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”
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