how to swim? When I was eleven years old a friend and I had gone down to the park to go swimming. I didn’t know how to swim so I stayed in the lower end of the pool. Todd was a great swimmer and would do all kind of stunts on the diving board. Todd diving moves got him a lot of attention from the girls, and he loved it. One afternoon while Todd was diving, I notice how the girls would stand on the side of the pool and watch as he did all kind of swirls off the diving board. I was a little jealous and wanted the attention he was getting. I waited until Todd dived off of the diving board. Climbed up on the board. Went to the edge of the pool and thought to myself, “Gino, what in the hell are you doing up here? You can’t swim a lick. If you dive off of this board and do something stupid, like drown. Will this really impress the girls? No, but if I drown, I won’t have anything to worry about cause I will be dead!” Todd saw me on the diving board and yelled for me to come down. “Gino, you don’t know how to swim! You better come down here before you get hurt.” I said a little prayer and dove off the diving board, landing stomach first into the pool. The pain of electricity ran through my body as I sunk to the bottom of the pool. I flapped my arms and legs real fast coming back up to the top of the pool. I gasp for air and sunk back down to the bottom of the pool. All of a sudden I felt someone grabbed me by my waste. The life guard had pulled me out of the pool. “Hey kid, you know you could have drown? The life guard asked. What were you thinking jumping into the pool like that knowing you didn’t know how to swim?” When I looked up, Todd was standing there shaking his head. I knew what he was thinking and told him not to say a word. The life guard gave me a lecture of never swimming in the deep end of a pool without knowing how to swim. On the way home, Todd offered to teach me how to swim. My first lesson took place in the family tub. If anyone ever try to teach you how to swim in the tub. Don’t let them. It doesn’t work. My second lesson was in a friend of Todd kiddy pool. If you are 6 2”, learning how to swim in a kiddy pool is no different than learning how to swim in a tub. It just doesn’t work. My second lesson took place at the pool I almost drown at. Todd had me sit on the edge of the pool while he tried explaining to me some of the motion moves he did with his arms and legs. Why they were so important to learn how to do these things. I had no clue what he was talking about. I just agreed with everything he was saying. I just wanted to swim. For three days, all Todd did was give me a speech on swimming. It was the eighth lesson that Todd had me get in the water and show him what I had learned from the last three lesson. I tried doing everything he had told me. Todd laughed at me a lot. All I was doing was getting frustrated. “This isn’t working for me, I said out loud. Maybe I should just quit.” Maybe swimming wasn’t meant for me. Todd got into the water, and told me, “No, I will help you.” For the next four days, Todd would teach me how to swim. I would listen to him as he told me what I was doing wrong. When I did something right, he would give me a pat on the back. In a week I was swimming on my own. In a month I was swimming in the deep end of the pool. The reason I wrote this story. Because after hearing a few hundred people say, “if you don’t like the preaching or the teaching. Pray and ask God to direct you to a church that will teach you.” Why would I need to do that if all churches are suppose to be teaching the same way? As the body of Christ (church), shouldn’t we want to learn how to evangelize (swim), so that when we have to face someone who doesn’t know the message (anything about swimming), we will know how to swim (evangelize) and than teach them how to swim (evangelize)? James 1:22-25 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If you are going to a church and the preacher is not teaching his members how to be disciples. Than why leave and not just get rid of the preacher? By your asking me to leave, will the other members learn how to swim? Or will they always be told how to swim without ever actually being taught how to swim?