As I’ve been preparing to speak to middle schoolers over the past few weeks, it’s led me into a subject that carries a lot of baggage for me.

Evangelism.

That word brings up pressure, guilt, a feeling of inadequacy. And when I’ve tried to practice it, it’s often felt… off. Like I’m stepping into the role of a salesperson. Disingenuous.

In my own faith journey, I’ve leaned much more into the “go and make disciples” part of Jesus’ words than what we’ve come to call evangelism. So as I started thinking about how to encourage kids to step into this, I could feel that old resistance rising again.

It felt like time (maybe long past time) to actually sit with it.

I went back to some notes I had taken from a class on spiritual formation, and I immediately hit a wall.

My first note said: “Seek out the lost.”

And I just stopped.

How do I tell kids to do that—kids who already see the world in such black and white ways? Who already draw lines, form tribes, decide who’s in and who’s out?

And if I’m honest, my own experience doesn’t fit neatly into that framework either.

I’ve known people who would clearly identify as Christians—who believe all the right things about Jesus—and yet seem deeply disconnected, closed off, even hard. And I’ve known people who wouldn’t use that label at all, who seem open and alive and full of love.

So what does it actually mean to be lost?

I keep coming back to the story of the prodigal son—more accurately the story of two sons.

The younger son, our prodigal, forgets who he is. He leaves home. He goes looking for life somewhere else, burns through everything he’s been given, and ends up alone.

This is the view of lostness I’ve always understood. Obvious distance from the Father. Wandering, turning away.

But then there’s the older brother. He never leaves. He stays close (in body) to the father. He works hard, doing what he’s supposed to do. And yet… when the father runs to welcome the younger son home, he can’t enter into the joy of it.

He doesn’t really know his father. He doesn’t understand his heart.

Both sons are lost. Both have forgotten who they are. Both need to come home.

So maybe being lost isn’t just about distance in the way I’ve always thought about it. Maybe it’s about being far from the Father’s heart. And because of that, far from our own heart too—our identity, the person we were made to be.

When I think about lostness this way, I start to notice it in more places—especially in myself.