Hi there! Welcome to the Young Writer's Society! Sorry that no one's taken the time to critique your work yet. Let's fix that now, shall we?

I really appreciate the themes in this story. I can tell you have a heart for what you are trying to communicate, and like that you had the natural instinct to communicate it with a story that had emotional appeal. To increase the tone of urgency from a practical standpoint, try using the active voice instead of the passive voice; instead of saying "the light was one," say "the lights shone," or something. Using a strong verb will do loads more to involve the audience than "was" and "were" do. Thematically, I think you could do more to increase audience identification with the main character of the story beyond just telling his life story. I worked at a church, and I know that if a pastor shares something like this for the first time, it is gut-wrentchingly nerve-wracking. Play up the emotion by having the pastor be anxious about sharing his story; as is, he seems a little above the world, which in reality isn't the case, you know? My only other (hopefully) helpful suggestion is to add more to the end. The story stops abruptly. Maybe you could add a paragraph more about how his audience responded to his message, with specific characters that were specifically impacted in some way by John 3:16.

Once again, welcome to YWS and I look forward to seeing more of your work! Thanks for sharing this piece, and PM me if you have any questions!