SMILE! It's Contagious!

During our recent Transformation Experience "Accelerate" in Elk River, MN we took the students out to implement the first step in Prayer Evangelism from Luke 10:5 where we are instructed to "BLESS." We made up HUGE cardboard signs with words of blessing and headed to a couple very busy intersections. Some examples of things written on the signs were "You're awesome," "You Matter", "Smile" and my personal favorite, "Nice Shoes." It was so fun to see people pulling up to a red light and then seeing their expressions change from disinterested, preoccupied and grumpy to a giant, wide, and in some cases, toothy smile! It literally was contagious! In about an hour, the group of teenagers that I was with successfully extracted 87 smiles, 78 honked car horns, 18 semi-truck horns honked and a handful of "what are you guys doing" and "what's this all about?" I had 3 people lean out their windows and respond to the "you're awesome" sign I was holding with, "NO, YOU'RE AWESOME!" It was AWESOME! Blessing people is so simple! It's as easy as smiling and waving an encouraging sign to try to brighten their day! We learned later from the owner of a trucking company that these youth and the crazy signs we held made quite an impact as it was the main topic of discussion around the water cooler for the entire afternoon back at the company headquarters!