If you don’t know, my job often takes me into various malls around town. I was sitting in a mall in Clarksville, Indiana tonight when two teeny-bopper girls walked out of a teeny-bopper store. They were probably 13 or 14 years old. As they emerged from the store, two 45-50 year old men somehow began engaging them in conversation. Now THAT seems odd, weird, and potentially dangerous. I quickly figured out, however, that the two men were out doing evangelism, trying to share the gospel with these girls.
Now, I obviously support evangelism and I’m sure these guys had their hearts in the right place. (I don’t think that this kind of encounter evangelism tends to be effective, however… though I’m open to being wrong.) You have to wonder, though, about the wisdom of two fifty year old guys, in this day and age, trying to engage in personal conversation with a couple of 14 year old girls at the mall. They meant well. But boy did it seem weird – especially to these girls. They looked a little shell-shocked during the conversation. After they parted ways the girls kind of dropped their jaws and glanced at each other as if to say OH…. MY…. GOSH. One of them then said to the other, “That was SO weird!” Yeah, I’d have to concur.
What do you think? Is there a line somewhere when zeal goes beyond wisdom or something?