The Courage of Youth

God sends little moments of grace on our walk with him.  A few Sundays ago I arrived home in the afternoon, after a conference. Kate handed me a visitor card from a young girl that had been our guest at All Saints.  She was invited by one of our youth.

The young lady wrote her name on the card but left all of the contact information blank.  On the back she checked only the box marked, "I'm visiting" and crossed out the rest of the sentence which read, "...from out of town."

In the "I have a question:" box she wrote this:

How come girls get to carry things?  Like Sarah? [name changed]  My church is only boys.  I wanted to but they said no. [sic] Just wondering.  (sorry if my hand writing stinks. I can't write on my knee)

What a simple question that requires a simple response, I replied and have had  the note delivered:

Dear Elizabeth, [name changed]

Thank you for filling out a visitor card when you visited our church with [Sarah]. We're glad you worshiped with us!  You asked the question...I assume you mean why do we allow girls to be acolytes who carry the candles, crosses, or gospel book in our service.  This must be different in your church.  The answer is that in some churches only boys are allowed to become ministers or priests.  And so then only boys are allowed to carry the crosses or candles, because some of them may want to be priests some day.  Although that is different from our church we all love Jesus; we just have different customs.  In our church the children may or may not become priests when they grow up.  So it does not matter if they are boys or girls.  If you would like to come and visit our church and be trained to carry the candles and other things we would be happy to let you try.  You will need to talk to your parents though to make sure it's okay.  We hope that you'll give it a try. God bless you, Fr. Stephen+

You never know what questions people have.  This encounter makes me thankful for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, I'm proud of our youth who are unafraid to invite their friends to All Saints, even if the friend has her own church. An invitation is evangelism.  Just because someone says they are from a different denomination doesn't mean that deep down there isn't an Anglican trying to get out!

All Saints is a great Christian community and worthy to invite your friends.  Adults! this is an inspiration to you.  You have friends who say they are one thing or another.  Don't let that stop you from inviting them to worship with us.  You never know, they'll probably like it!  There are lots of barriers that keep people from coming to church.  The first barrier is not being invited.  Only you can remove that barrier.

Second, I appreciate the young lady's question.  She wasn't afraid of asking the priest a very simple question.  It takes courage to acknowledge that we don't know something, and it takes more courage to step up and ask questions.  There's probably something that you don't know and that you're not asking.  But you want to ask.  So ASK!  Send me an email, write me a note.

Finally, I am grateful that this young person came to visit us.  There are lots of wonderful things happening at All Saints.  We want to include new friends to be a part of our fellowship.  Keep up the good work!  God blesses us with the visitation of strangers.  They see God and our church community with new eyes.

Holy ones,

In light of the recent shootings at the grammar school in Connecticut, we will begin Sunday service with prayer, silence, and the reading of Holy Scripture.

We will not have regular announcements prior to the service.

I believe it is important for us to still gather together for fellowship and support on Sunday evening for the fellowship dinner. I will attempt to remember to announce this at The Peace on Sunday morning.

Please pray for the parents and families of school faculty whose loved ones were killed or injured. Most of us cannot imagine their suffering. They need the love and peace of God and support of those close to them.

Often our minds stray to questions like, “Why did this happen?,” or “Why does God allow these things to happen?” as if we can intellectually understand or find reason in these events. But these acts of evil are the antithesis of reason. There is no reason but evil alone that perpetrates this hatred of life. 

The taking of human life is a crime against God as we were made in his image, male and female, adult and children all were made in his image.

God reveals himself as Father and as a parent loves his children. He groans and suffers at the loss of his children just as we do. But as he is the creator of all he growns and suffers everyday when we hurt one another.

Take this time to be extra loving and caring to the people God has placed in your path. For those individuals may very well be his children too.

My love and blessing to you all,

Fr. Stephen+