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and drop it into a pot of water. Her teammates behind her were shouting directions, telling her when to walk straight, left, or right. The only problem was, there was another team trying to do the same thing on the other side of the room.
    “Keep going straight!”
    “Turn left, Jamie!”
    “Five yards right in front of you.”
    “Which one?” Jamie said.
    “Straight, Jamie!” It was Vanessa Moran, a new girl in town. “It’s right in front of you.”
    “Stop!” someone yelled.
    “Now! Drop it.”
    She couldn’t tell if it was her group or someone else.
    “Go, Jamie!” Trace Flattery yelled over the din. She could always tell his voice. It sounded like he had about a hundred marbles in his mouth when he talked.
    Jamie bent a little and tipped the spoon. She heard a splat, then another, and groans rose from both sides of the room. She reached up and took off the blindfold. At her feet was a broken egg. Ahead of her stood Gary Edwards, a hulk of a guy who played defense on the football team and center on the basketball team. He stood over the pot of water, grinning from ear to ear, his egg on the floor.
    “Why didn’t you listen to us?” Vanessa said. “What a klutz.”
    “Okay, hold it down,” Pastor Gordon said. “Good job, Jamie and Gary. Take a seat.” The man was in his late 20s, newly married, and looked more like a model from one of those ads at the mall than a youth pastor. Theirs wasn’t the biggest youth group in town, but Pastor Gordon had a way of getting kids involved. When more kids heard about it, Jamie felt sure they’d come.
    “All right, Jamie, tell me what happened out there,” Pastor Gordon said.
    “Everybody was yelling so loud—I couldn’t tell which ones were on my team and which ones were yelling at Gary.”
    “So you got mixed up by the voices?”
    “Yeah. It’s like they were all jumbled up together, and I didn’t know which one to follow.”
    “So when you dropped the egg . . . ?”
    “I thought I heard my team tell me to.”
    The kids around her groaned. First pick at the pizza was on the line.
    “All right, how about you, Gary?”
    “I listened for Jimmy’s directions because he has the biggest mouth.”
    Laughter.
    “I knew his voice would boom out over everyone else’s. And he’s on the basketball team, so I figured if he messed me up, I’d get him back during a game.”
    “You’d actually do that?” Jimmy said, incredulous.
    “Knew I wouldn’t have to.”
    “You were closer than Jamie, but you still didn’t get the egg in the pot,” Vanessa said.
    “Close counts, doesn’t it?” Gary said.
    “We’ll sort that out in a minute,” Pastor Gordon said. “But this proves the point we were just talking about. See, in life, you’re going to hear a lot of voices telling you what to do and not do. Who are you supposed to believe? Advice from over here might soundgood, but it may be bad. And like this egg, your life might crash and break.
    “Now suppose, since we’re right in the heart of NASCAR country, that you were out there on the track listening to your spotter, but somehow the wires got crossed and you were actually hearing someone else’s communication? Can you imagine what would happen if the voice on the other end of that microphone said to go low and there was a car there?”
    Trace raised a hand. “You know what? I heard that happened once in an old Busch Series race at—”
    Pastor Gordon smiled. “Let’s save that one for around the table. Trace, why don’t you read that verse printed on the handout.”
    Trace held up the crumpled piece of paper. “‘My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.’”
    “That’s right,” Pastor Gordon continued. “Jesus was talking to people about who he was. In fact, at the end of his answer to them, they actually picked up stones to kill him.”
    “What for?” Vanessa said. “Just because he mentioned sheep? Talk about prejudice.”
    A few people snickered.
    “No, look