[anaisdannyxys]

Do you want to witness to them or be buddies with them. These things are not necessarily compatible.

If your "friends" were to take out a knife and start poking you with it, pricking the skin or inflicting a small cut each time, but when you complained they said that it was really nothing, not a big deal, why do you have to get so worked up by something so small, and then as if to prove how insignificant it is began pricking and cutting themselves and each other - would you agree with them and stick around or would you get out of there. When you expose yourself willingly to this kind of sin, then you wound your soul with a thousand little pricks and cuts each time.

You state in your profile that you are protestant and in my experience, there is a huge emphasis in protestant Churches about "witnessing". In Orthodoxy the emphasis is instead in working out your own salvation (as in the saying of St Seraphim, (rough paraphrase)"Acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands around you will be saved" ). Your first responsibility before God is not to witness to others, but rather to work out your own salvation. "Witnessing" is not something you do with your words but with your life. So if you hang out with the boys and don't object and set limits around sinful actions, then how will they see the difference in your life? Why do they think they need this "salvation" that you offer since it doesn't really mean that you live any differently than they. If you want to witness, then make it show in your life. Perhaps they will stop including you in their little bull sessions and stop calling you to meet them for a beer and Monday night football. But when there is trouble or difficulty or a simply a desire for something different in life, they will know who to call. Save yourself first, let God save the others (and trust Him to use you in that process as He sees fit, not in the way that you think it ought to be).

Fr David