New Year

My goal for the new year was to start a blog... and... so far -- not bad.... i'm only 11 days behind!!! why start a blog? i dunno... maybe to make public some of the awesome things that happen in my youth group... maybe to think out loud... maybe to just "be" - it was good enough for God right - "i am who i am... i was who i was... i will be who i will be." so, this is me be-ing.

but how can i start without a story from christmas - my favorite moment this chrismtas went like this: the youth were leading a christmas service... it was on dec. 20th, but it was a christmas eve service... and i was already proud of them... two wrote the sermon... several worked on the scripture... already many had come up to me to show me parts of the prayers they were writing. it was really a great process. the kids had chosen to center the service around luke 2:1-7, specifically the part where there was no room for mary and joseph in the inn. they had titled the sermon "no room in the inn... crowd..." and their goal was to reassure their congregation that it's okay to feel left out sometimes... certainly mary and joseph were left out... jesus was born as a homeless dude... and in the end, god used all of these people to do amazing things....

when the morning of the service came, one girl who had been practicing to play the part of mary was late... so late, in fact that we started the service without her and another girl had already agreed to step in. so, we get to the mary and joesph skit part and the girl who was to fill in stepped up and began the skit. in the middle of the skit, the first "mary" came in... and the substitute mary stopped the skit and said, "hey -- do you want to play mary?" - and then gave the first youth no choice but to play her as the substitute immediately began putting her "mary" blanket-turned-head-covering over the original mary and thrusting baby jesus in her hand. of course, the congregation laughed and patiently waited for the switch, but in the switch, i was overcome by this emotion: they get it. they get it that it hurts to be left out... and they are willing to share - even forcably - to make sure that everyone participates... it doesn't matter if the person comes to worship late - they are still a necessary part of this community. sure, god can use us even if we feel left out, but as a community, we are called to be sure that no one is left out.

so, yeah for the youth! and yeah for impromptu moments in the life of a youth group that demonstrate in less-than-rehearsed ways what it means to be the community of believers anticipating a time when no one would ever feel left out... ever.