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What a
great Sunday experience we are partaking in today. Today we,
as a church congregation, say to the youth of our
congregation: “Not only do you have an opportunity to take
part in our church, but you have an opportunity to be leaders
in our church.” And today, as you sit here and are led
through worship by the words and the songs and the preaching
of our students, I am sure you will stand, like many of us who
work with these students on a regular basis, in awe at the way
that they know the truth of God in their own lives, in their
own families. You will be amazed by the ways, in the midst of
their hectic and busy lives, they seek out the kind of
community that is planted and growing in a place like this.
We have
been talking all weekend about family. I’m going to see if
these guys remember what to do when they’re asked this
question: Who are we? “We are family!” That’s right.
That’s what we’ve been talking about this weekend. Any
time somebody is around this group and says “Who are we?”,
don’t be surprised if that’s what you hear: “We are
family.” You might not even be meaning to say it. You might
say, “I was together with a bunch of people and I was
wondering, ‘Who are we?’,” and you’ll hear a bunch of
youth say: “We are family.” You might be surprised. Do you
think the congregation can catch onto that if we ask them?
Let’s try the whole congregation: Who are we? “We are
family.”
How true
that is. When we come together in this place, we aren’t just
people coming together on a Sunday. We become family. This
weekend, we talked about a world that often tries to separate
us one from another—to separate youth from grade to grade
and from school to school. In the world, we are often
separated along the lines of race, color and gender. But when
we come together in this place under the spirit of Christ,
something miraculous happens. We become brothers and sisters
in the family of God.
The
scripture this morning began with the song that said: “Dwell
in the Lord. Dwell in God.” This weekend, we talked about
what it means when we dwell in that place as family. Over the
next few minutes, we are going to hear the words of some
powerful and inspired preachers from our youth ministry. They
will share the blessings of their own families, the blessings
of their church family, and the call they are feeling even now
to go out into the global family. So with that in mind, we
bring forth our first preacher of the morning, Emily.
*
* * * *
Sundays in
our house are usually fairly predictable. Church in the
morning, homework for my brothers and me, choir practice,
then, once we all return home for the evening, dinner. This
meal together sometimes feels like the only time we truly get
to sit with each other and catch up after a long, hectic week.
The food is always delicious, but the conversation and
laughter that roars through the kitchen is what really makes
the time special.
Sitting at
the table, I can look around to each of my family members and
watch them exhibit the gifts they bring to the family, as well
as to myself, every day. I watch my mom race around the
kitchen, constantly making sure that we’re all perfectly
comfortable and happy, much like she does every other day of
the week under any other circumstances we can put ourselves
in. While Mom takes care of us, Dad is also there to make sure
that we can also take care of ourselves. He teaches us lessons
and skills that allow us to be loving and successful once we
finally get up from that family dinner table. Through his
example as well as his direct guidance, Dad gives us room to
grow and discover our own gifts that we have to share with the
world. Looking across the table, I join my brothers in what
most likely is a conversation or a joke that will soon have me
rolling with laughter. Every day I feel so blessed to be
living with an older brother whose guidance I value more than
anyone else’s on this earth, as well as a little brother who
at many times proves to be the best friend I have.
Dinner
carries on, the stories, teasing and jokes continue, and I
must take my mind away from the chaos for a moment and thank
God for blessing me with a family so full of humor and love.
Although some days my dinner table may not seem like the right
setting for a very spiritual experience, it is at moments like
those that happen around the dinner table when I feel God’s
blessing on my family most.
As do,
I’m sure, many of the parents sitting in front of me this
morning, my mom and dad often tell me how proud they are of
the person I have become. When they shower me with such
compliments and flattery, I feel as if I should let them know
that the person I’ve become is the person they’ve taught
me to be. It’s my mom’s compassion that has taught me to
love others, Dad’s wisdom that has helped me to become so
successful, and their combined praise that has taught me to
celebrate everyone’s differences.
My parents
aren’t my only source of life lessons, though. I often turn
to my brothers, much more often than I am sure they know. When
I need someone to show me how to laugh and enjoy whatever I am
going through in my own life, they serve as my source of
relief during times of stress. I always count on them to be my
rocks.
As I grow
up and begin to experience new things, I often look far off
into the future and wonder how things will turn out for me one
day. I think about college, what in the world I’m going to
do after college, and sometimes I even catch myself pondering
the thought of a family of my own. I consider it such a
blessing that when I think about the hopes for my own future
family, I am thinking about the family that I have right now.
Though we’re not perfect, it is often hard for me to think
about too many things I’d like to change about the way my
family shows our love for one another.
To my
family: I love every one of you and thank God every day for
the finest blessing I have on this earth.
*
* * * *
Like all of
you, I am hearing these words for the first time this morning.
I don’t know if you caught it, but I think Emily gave the
best description of what communion is. And it sounds like
Sunday nights at the Albertson’s, when they break bread and
share time together, in fact it is the Holy Spirit that is
present with them. And when we practice communion together
here as a congregation, it is so that we do not miss those
moments when communion is happening in the midst of our own
lives, and where God is creating family in our very midst.
This last
week, we talked about the opportunities when God not only
calls us to our own family—our home family, our biological
family—but that God has allowed us to enter into a larger
family called this church. And in this place, and in churches
all around this earth, we become the family of God. So we’ve
asked Katherine to come forward and talk about the church as
family.
*
* * * *
Hi, my name
is Katherine and I’m a sophomore at Seaholm High School. I
love being involved in the senior high youth program, from
doing missions to just hanging out at the parsonage with the
Nelsons. Some of my favorite experiences come from the trips I
have taken with the youth ministry. Just last year during
spring break, I took a trip down to Tennessee, a fourteen-hour
bus ride with one bathroom and 48 other kids. We stayed at the
SOS building for seven days. During the day we would work at
mission sites on neighborhood homes and get to know the
community. At night we would go around the city to different
churches and learn how they praised the Lord, or just hang out
at the Sonic across the street.
While being
around the families, I learned so much about togetherness and
family bonding. These families weren’t in the best
situations, but made us so welcome and invited us into their
homes. These people lived in the worst part of town, but
praised the Lord with such passion and dedication that it
didn’t matter where they were. Being a part of that changed
my perspective on my community and how lucky I am to live
where I do.
When the
opportunity came for me to go to Tennessee again, it was a
no-brainer. Of course! When I heard that it would be at a
different place, I was even more excited and more ready to get
there. But wait? A different place? More hours on the bus?
Yes. That is the main ingredient in the best recipe in the
world—Tennessee trips. Hanging out with everybody on the bus
is the best way to get to know everything everyone does. And
considering we spent a lot of time on the bus, we knew every
little detail about all 51 of us.
After we
went rock climbing, white-water rafting, and tubing down the
river, the trip was off to a great start. And by the end of
the trip, I had learned to love hanging out, campfires,
listening to music, and laying out watching the stars. Now,
don’t think that all this was just fooling around. We worked
very hard at our mission sites every day. Having paint fights
and playing Frisbee is tough work! Actually, in my group, we
painted a new building and cleaned other parts of the church.
Learning how to work with each other, even if someone was
rolling paint and missed the wall, was all a part of the trip.
Tennessee
has not been my only destination with youth ministry. Being
part of the church choir has allowed me to go to Chicago and
Toronto, and this summer, England. Taking trips is amazing and
a great way to get to know people.
But the
best part about our church is meeting with the youth leaders
on weekdays when you need some help and relaxation the most.
So when I was asked to be a student leader at Youth Encounter
Weekend, I was very excited. Although it would be my fifth
year attending, it would be my first year as a student leader.
This weekend I got to know so many new people, some even being
a part of my team. For just meeting them a couple of days ago,
I think that we have gotten to know each other pretty well.
Being a
teenager in the middle of my high school years is really
stressful, and being a part of this church has helped me deal
with it. I love being with kids and hopefully, after college,
I would like to become an elementary school teacher. So this
weekend was so much fun for me, and I know it was for your
kids, too. Being a part of this congregation means that you
are there for the other adults and the youth. I think that our
church has taken on the responsibility so well, that the youth
feel comfortable coming to you with their achievements and
problems. So just like our saying for the weekend, this church
is family. We are family.
*
* * * *
An amazing
thing happened this year in our youth program. I scheduled two
trips after the first of the year. One was a ski trip. The
other was a mission trip. Nobody signed up for the ski trip.
We had a waiting list for the mission trip. That told me
something very important about our youth today, something that
I think would challenge all of the things we may think about
young people. And I will tell you from being with them on a
regular basis, they are hungry for opportunities to change and
transform this world. And our job as leaders, as adults in
this family, is to simply make those opportunities available
and then get out of the way and let the Holy Spirit do what it
does.
Now I
understand that Cornelia Schulz is here today. You had a bunch
of kids come to your house yesterday, right, Cornelia? They
were telling great stories about the opportunity to meet
Cornelia. Cornelia, thank you for inviting them to your home
yesterday. Were they a good help? “They did a wonderful
job.”
We end our
time together with one more testimony, this one from Whitney,
a senior in our program. And I’ll tell you, in the two years
I have been involved, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone grow
more fully into the person that God has created her to be than
Whitney. She is going share a bit about how God is using her
and using this youth ministry, hopefully challenging all of us
to see God’s family is bigger than we ever could imagine it
to be.
*
* * * *
Hi, I’m
Whitney and I’m a twelfth grader at Seaholm High School.
This weekend we divided into eight families and spent the last
few days together. Yesterday morning, my family went to
Pontiac to build picnic tables for Habitat for Humanity homes.
Although I am sure most of us would have liked to buy a picnic
table rather than build one, it was a great team-bonding
activity and a nice way to give something back to the
community.
Working in
Pontiac has not been my only service opportunity. I have been
lucky enough to go to Service Over Self in Memphis, Copper
Basin, and smaller service projects in the area. I think
it’s really important to give something back to the
community, especially seeing as we’ve all been so blessed. I
feel like when others see us having fun by serving, they, too,
want to help out.
Sometimes I
think that those of us who participate in community service
are receiving much more than the people we help. The
friendships, experiences and stories are all one of a kind and
unbelievably rewarding. A lot of the time we work with people
who come from very different backgrounds, family situations
and religious beliefs. I think our faith really helps us to
overcome that and realize that we are all brothers and
sisters, because we know God created us and has a plan for
everyone. He teaches us to accept everybody with no
exceptions.
In the
future I plan to continue serving the community with all the
gifts I’ve been given and give as much as I can to the
community for everything it has given me.
*
* * * *
There you
have it, friends. The word preached from the young people of
our congregation. And in that today, I hope you heard the
Gospel. I hope you heard that truth, that God has indeed
connected with all of us. And the blessings of our own family,
our church family, and the family that extends all around the
world are open and available to all of us when we come
together as the family of God.
I hope you
heard Whitney preach the paradox of the Gospel
She said, “I go out to serve people and what ends up
happening is that I get the blessing.” Jesus said, “If you
want to get your life, you have to lose it first”—the
Gospel preached and lived out by our teenagers this weekend
and throughout their lives. I hope you will hear that
challenge this morning and become a part of this community of
faith. If you’re looking for opportunities to get involved
with this great spirit, just give me or Sue or Carl a call.
We’ve got lots of room. Do you want to have a life-changing
experience? Take a fourteen-hour bus ride with 51 of these
young people who are growing into the people God has created
them to be! You will be a part of a family by the end of that
trip.
I’ll end
our time together with a story and a prayer. The story was
told by a preacher named Fred Craddock. You have probably
heard his stories before, but this story seems to sum up best
for me what these youth are beginning to experience with each
other. He tells a story about the first time he was at his
first church, a small rural church. He had just come out of
seminary with all these great ideas about how he was going to
put them to work in a church in a new way.
It was his
first Easter in this new, small, rural, country church. In his
tradition, at Easter, they baptized people into the life of
the church. They would go down to the river (because this was
down South, and you can do that in the Easter season) and they
would have a baptism. They would accept new members into the
family that day. Afterwards, someone would make a big bonfire
and they would all stand around and share stories and sing
songs. They would get in a big circle and call everybody
around. They put all the new members of the family at the
front of the circle. And then, one by one, people would go
around the circle and introduce themselves. They’d say,
“Hello, my name is Bill. And if you ever need anyone to fix
your truck, call me.” The next would say, “Hi, I’m Mary,
and if you ever need help with child care, call me.” One by
one they’d go around and introduce themselves. They’d say,
“My name is…, and if you need…, call me.”
At the end
of that circle, as the fire died down, people began to leave.
And finally, Pastor Craddock and an older gentleman, the
deacon of the church, were the only ones left. And as they put
the fire down that night, the deacon turned to Pastor Craddock
and said, “Pastor, I don’t know what they taught you in
that seminary. But I want to tell you one thing. It doesn’t
get any closer than this. We have a word for this—what we
did here today—that I hope they taught you in seminary. What
we did here today is church.”
Outside of
the walls and in a way that may not have looked like church,
they embodied that spirit fully that day. This weekend, in the
gym, wearing disco clothes, going out into the world singing
fun songs, these youth began to become church.
This
morning as you leave the sanctuary, you’ll be invited to go
into the Fellowship Hall. On the screen there will be videos
playing of this weekend’s experience. And in the fun and
energy, I hope that you do not miss the Spirit of God that was
fully present with us this weekend.
Please join
me in a closing prayer as we pray for the youth of our
congregation.
Gracious
and holy God, we thank you so much for the opportunity to be
here this morning. We thank you so much for each of these
young people who took time out of the busy-ness of a new
school year to say that in the midst of all that is going on
in their lives and all that is going on in this world, we need
a place where we can be family. And God, we thank you for not
just their willingness to participate, but their willingness
to be leaders.
God, we
thank you for each of the youth who took part in today’s
service, whether it was in singing the songs or singing the
specials or reading the scriptures or preaching your word. You
have planted in each of them a seed that is growing. Allow us,
the congregation, to continue to water them. But also, Lord,
make all of us open to letting them water the seed that is in
us, because they too have much to teach us. And that is truly
what this family is that you call us to.
Lord, as
we go forth from this place, we pray for a great school year
for these young people. We continue to ask you to help them
find their way back here. And then, once they are here, they
can be sent forth into your world to change it, transform it,
and make you more fully known. In Jesus’ name, we offer this
prayer. And the people said, “Amen.”
One more
question for you, church. Who are we? “We are family.”
Note: This
sermon was given after a weekend-long experience we call Youth
Encounter Weekend. During the four-day event, seventy students
from sixth through twelfth grade came together for fun,
fellowship, service and prayer. The theme was “We are
Family,” and we all wore cheesy disco clothes and danced the
YMCA and the Hustle. But we also looked at the ways God was
making us all a family united in love, faith, hope and
charity.
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