Most adults who care about a hurting teenager are already close enough to notice the trouble and far enough away to avoid it. This guide asks you to change that distance with one young person over one week. You will choose a name, read one parable slowly, try seven small acts of presence, and then look honestly at what changed and what it cost.
You can work through it alone in a notebook, or a group can read it together, practice through the week, and meet again to compare notes. It draws on a Jude 3 Project conversation in which Lisa Fields talks with Pastor Jay Harris, who spent about three years volunteering with one high school classroom in Jacksonville. Many of those students were grieving shootings, hunger and homes where no adult was watching out for them.
Start with one name
Before you read further, write down the first name of one young person you see regularly and suspect is carrying something heavy. Make it a real person, not a category like “the kids at church.” It could be your own child, a nephew, a student in the back row of youth group, or the teammate your son keeps mentioning.
Under the name, describe your current distance using only what you can observe. How often do you speak? What do you actually know about their week? Have you ever asked a question and waited for the whole answer? The honest description is often short. I say hi in the hallway. I know her mom. I assume things are hard at home.
Then write one sentence about why you have stayed where you are. Keep it. You will come back to it at the end.
In a group, nobody needs to say the name out loud. You can share the kind of distance without sharing the person.
Read the road slowly
Read Luke 10:25-37 aloud, then read it again with a pencil. On the second reading, mark every verb of movement and every verb of seeing.
The story answers a lawyer who wants to justify himself: “And who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:29). Jesus gives no definition. He tells a story about a road.
Look at the two religious men. “And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side” (Luke 10:31). The Levite does the same: “And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side” (Luke 10:32). Both see the wounded man. The Levite even comes and looks. The failure is not blindness. It is the direction each man walks after he sees.
Now the Samaritan: “But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him” (Luke 10:33-34). Count what that compassion cost: time on the road, his supplies, his animal and his money at the inn.
Luke leaves the priest’s and the Levite’s motives unstated. Readers fill that silence with their own reasons, which is why the sentence you wrote earlier belongs next to this passage.
Jesus ends by turning the question around: “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?” (Luke 10:36). The lawyer answers, and Jesus says, “Go, and do thou likewise” (Luke 10:37). The story is narrative, but it closes with a direct command to the man who asked. The question is no longer who qualifies as my neighbor. It is whether I will act like one.
Pause and write: Which verb in the passage describes your distance from the person you named? Is it “passed by,” “came and looked,” or something the text does not quite cover?
The third person on the road
Harris adds someone to this scene who is not in Luke’s story. His addition is worth testing:
I always say the best place to minister from is where you getting blood on the shoe, not across the street talking about why people are laying on the ground, but literally next to the person on the ground.
The added person is across the street and talking. That person may even be accurate about bad parenting, neighborhood violence or poor choices. But explaining from a distance is still a way of passing by. Many parents and youth leaders recognize themselves here more readily than in the priest. We have not ignored the kid. We have analyzed him.
Harris also claims that distance damages the adult. In his words, “your gospel gets real funny when you ain’t next to suffering.” He says he thought he understood the gang problem in his city before he entered that classroom, and found he did not. He warns beginners that “if you’ve never been out there, there’s a learning curve when you step out there.” Expect the week to correct some of what you assume about this young person.
He explains why the effort matters with a boy whose family assumed he would join a revenge shooting. Some teenagers in crisis, Harris says, have no one older to consult: “There’s literally nobody with any type of wisdom for them to even tap on the shoulder and ask.” What that boy needed was simple and rare: “he just needed somebody to throw this problem against, to give him dignity in saying, no, I’m not gonna do that.” Harris did not need a perfect speech. He needed to be the adult close enough to be asked.
Guardrails before you begin
Closeness to a minor has to be safe for everyone. Follow your church’s or school’s child-protection policy. Spend time in public or shared spaces. If you are not the young person’s parent, let their parent or guardian know you are involved. Harris observes that the girls he sees need women in their corner: “the ladies need some ladies bad.” If the young person you named is of a different sex, consider whether the most faithful step is bringing in a trusted adult who can be close in ways you cannot.
If a teenager tells you about abuse or violence at home, believe them. Do not pressure them to make peace with the person hurting them, and do not handle it alone. Many states require teachers and ministry workers to report suspected abuse to child protective services. If a child is in immediate danger, call 911. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. If a young person talks about ending their life, you or they can call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Presence does not replace counselors, doctors or police. Sometimes being close means making sure the right people come too.
A week of coming closer
Each day has one small act. Each night, write two lines: what you did, and what surprised you. If a step does not fit your situation, adapt it instead of skipping it.
- Find out where they already are. Learn one place this young person spends time without you: a practice, a job, a corner of the school, a game they play. Do not go yet. Notice how far it is from the places you usually expect to see them.
- Ask one real question and wait. Ask about their actual week, not church attendance or grades. Let the silence run longer than is comfortable. Write down one thing you did not know before.
- Come where they are. Show up once at the place you found on day one, if it is appropriate and safe. Stay a little while. Bring no announcement and no lesson.
- Ask what they think. Harris says, “The youth know what they want to do. We just need the resource.” Ask your young person what they think is wrong in their school, neighborhood or home, and what they would change. Take the answer seriously enough to repeat it back accurately.
- Remove one obstacle. Harris describes boys it took about three years to get through the church door, and he did not want anyone greeting them with a comment about a hat. His standard was “If they in the church, we winning.” The arrival itself was the victory, and a correction about appearance could undo years of trust. Name one expectation you attach to welcome, such as dress, hair, speech or music, and decide to stop requiring it before you will listen.
- Tell another adult. Harris speaks openly about the toll: “Sometimes I am rocking back and forth and can’t bring myself to pick up the phone even when I know people in distress because it’s coming so much.” Tell one trusted friend, spouse or pastor what you are attempting, and ask them to check on you in a month.
- Plan for the bad day. If the week went well, write down what you will do the first time it does not. If it went badly, read the next section before deciding anything.
When the week goes badly
It may. Harris describes students who had a good day, then came back the next and flipped a table, because they “still have to go home to the trauma of home.” Adults, he says, read such kids too quickly: “And the story deeper than just being a disrespectful kid.”
That does not make behavior irrelevant. Harris confronts pride, challenges the music his students love, and talks a boy out of violence. What he refuses to do is let one bad day end the relationship. He expects a long road, saying “it may be a long walk with ’em.”
Sometimes, though, distance is the wise choice. A teenager who clearly and repeatedly declines contact should have that choice respected. Pushing past it repeats the very disregard many hurting kids already know. An adult in a season of illness, grief or exhaustion may have no reserves to offer, and a promise of closeness they cannot keep can wound more than honest limits. Some situations call for a parent, counselor or authority rather than a volunteer. A rough test helps: avoidance protects your comfort, while prudence protects the young person or the relationship. Prudent distance usually comes with a plan, such as staying available, checking in occasionally, or making sure another trustworthy adult is close. Avoidance usually comes with an explanation.
Read Romans 15:1: “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.” Paul is writing to a divided church about mature believers carrying weaker ones, and verse 2 continues, “Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification.” The burden runs from the stronger person toward the weaker. For your week, that means the adult absorbs more of the cost of staying. Harris says he sees mature believers instead trying to “whip the people in the shape” because they cannot tolerate the mess.
Nothing in Luke 10 or Romans 15 promises that your presence will heal a teenager, keep them safe or bring them to faith. Harris’s own story points to a longer timeline. As a teenager in and out of juvenile detention, he says, “so many people prayed for me and they probably thought I didn’t hear a word they said, but at a certain time all I could hear was their voice.” Faithfulness here is measured in staying power, not visible results.
For a group
If you meet after the week, let people report from their nightly notes in their own words. Nobody has to describe the young person, and nobody has to share at all. Watch for the person who goes quiet. Some in the room were that teenager not long ago, or are raising one now. Protect every minor’s identity in what is said.
- Which part of the week was hardest to actually do, and what does that suggest about where your distance comes from?
- Harris adds a person across the street who is explaining the problem. Is that a fair extension of Jesus’s parable, or does it say more than Luke 10 says? What in the text supports or limits it?
- What did you learn on day two or day four that you would not have guessed from across the street?
- Harris claims distance makes our faith unreal. Did anything you believed about this young person, or about God, need adjusting this week?
- Where is the line in your own situation between prudent distance and avoidance? Who could help you see it honestly?
- Which church customs in your setting work as obstacles for teenagers, and which protect something worth keeping? How would you tell the difference?
Back to the name
Return to the first page. Read the name, your description of your distance, and the sentence explaining why you stayed there. Write a new description of where things stand now, using only what you can observe. Then reread your old reason. Is it still true? Was it ever the whole story?
Harris insists this kind of presence requires willingness more than expertise. He describes it as “not having to have it figured out first,” and says, “It’s just showing up.” The question to carry into next week is narrower and harder than the one you started with: what will it take for you to still be there in a year?