He was a big man, much taller than the teenager walking towards him. He stood in Moore Square Park in downtown Raleigh with old clothes, a busted lip and a plastic bag. She called out to the man as she held out a cloth bag for him. He nodded and accepted the bag. He didn’t know her name and she didn’t know his; but, right then, it didn’t matter.
The girl is a member of Singing Waiters, Colonial’s high school choir, and she’d come to Moore Square with the group as an outreach. Armed with Gospel tracts, Bibles, water bottles, bags of basic toiletries and a heart for the Gospel, The Singing Waiters went to Moore Square Friday, May 7 to sing, serve and present the Gospel to whomever they could. The middle school choir, His Voice, joined them.

“The reason we do outreach events with the Waiters and other youth-based groups mostly flows out of two ‘Greats’ in the New Testament as taught by Jesus,” said Worship Pastor, David Loftis. “The first [great] is the Great Commandment—‘To love the Lord…and your neighbor as yourself.’ The next [great] is the Great Commission—‘To go into all the world and make disciples, proclaiming the truth, teaching them to know and follow God’s way.’” To prepare for the evening, the teens spent weeks during their weekly rehearsals practicing how to share the Gospel, and the impact it has made on their lives, in a compelling and open way.

Sophomore Mary Ramsey got to share with two very different people. She began talking with a man who was sitting on a bench after she gave him water. When her friend, Audrey Daum, walked up with a tract, the conversation shifted to spiritual matters. The man said he goes to church occasionally with his mom and likes sermons about the Ten Commandments and Heaven. “I actually became a Christian after hearing about the Ten Commandments,” said Mary. “So, from there I was able to share my entire testimony, my whole story of how I came to Christ, just like we practiced in Waiters—It was really, really cool!” The second person Mary talked with had ripped up a tract that another Waiter had just given her. After a 20-minute conversation, she insisted the Bible had been tampered with and Mary was too young to understand. “When Pastor Loftis said it was time to leave I said, ‘I’ll pray for you and I really hope you learn that Jesus is the only way to heaven before you die.’ It was really heartbreaking, but I’m really glad I knew what to say,” said Mary.

“We’re not here to impress anybody, we’re just here to praise the Lord and we welcome anyone who wants to join us,” said Pastor Loftis, as the Waiters began to sing Gospel-centered songs for a few people who had gathered to watch. “My Savior, My Savior Lives!” sang the choir.

Junior Amanda Mann was able to share the Gospel and a small part of her testimony with an elderly man who sat through the entire performance. He said he’d been thinking more about a "divine existence" and re-evaluating his life recently; he’d even decided to start getting off of drugs. “He truly seemed open to hearing it [the Gospel],” said Amanda. “I probably will never see him again in my life, but I will continue to keep him and others like him in my prayers.”

Robin, a homeless woman who stood in the back and clapped with delight throughout the whole performance said: “I was just thinking today—‘The church needs to be out where the people are. We need to make people jealous of what we have.’”