Saturday, January 13, 2007

Going TO church or being THE church??

Tomorrow we will celebrate with 5 of our youth their becoming members of our local body of the church. They will be 'confirmed" during the service and will publicly profess their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior (at least what that means for them at this juncture in their lives). They will then make vows of membership to God and to the church regarding their desire to walk in accordance to God's will, as well as become a part of the community of faith who seeks to rejoice and mourn, laugh and cry, TOGETHER.
As always, my concern is that we just go through the motions, pat them on the back, eat a meal with them, and then send them on their merry way, leaving them to fend for themselves in this crazy high pressure world we live in. Oh, we can meet each week together in church, (which is biblical and essential), but I just wonder how we can BE the church to them.
Will we pray for them? Will we go to their ball games and support them? Will we be there for them when they stumble? Will we give of our time to teach, to make cookies, to shoot hoops, to chaperone, to listen, to attempt to offer some stability in an unstable world? I certainly hope so.
Just because these kids are joining the church tomorrow doesn't mean it is the starting point for them. God has been at work in their lives prior to their even being born. It's just that tomorrow is a spiritual marker that highlights an important time that He is at work in their lives. And it provides those of us who have been a part of the church for some time, an opportunity and privilege to welcome them into something far greater than an institution, but a family, a community of faith. So let's not just go through the motions on Sunday, let's be the "alive and well" body of Christ that joins with these kids on this faith journey we call life.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Where's all your readers? Are they asleep or just afraid to respond???