Youth Sunday is always a lot of fun. Watching God’s word written on the hearts of our youngest disciples tickles me. Kids I first met as little ones are now in the teen group I lead and as they prepped to lead music, prayers and preaching for this year’s youth Sunday I was struck by a certain surety the kids have. When we left our congregation’s building and possessions behind to form a new church, we worried about how the young people would cope. Watching them this spring, it’s clear we can learn a lot from their coping. Our kids are growing up building-free but on a serious building campaign. Not a building campaign in the traditional sense but one where they are working to build the Kingdom one relationship at a time.
Just a quick search through a concordance shows us the church in action. The church feared. The church listened. The church enjoyed peace. The church learned. The church prayed. The church gathered. None of these verbs traditionally describe the actions of bricks and mortar. Funny enough, I haven’t found one passage talking about how the church stood still through all types of weather and waited for people to arrive.Growing up building-free, our teens see
Growing up building-free, our teens see church not as stained glass or stone but as a collection of hearts and lives. Sure we meet at one place on Sunday, a different place on Wednesdays and Bible studies might meet at a home or a restaurant but we are Living Hope wherever we are. We, God’s people, are the church and our teens get it. They seem to instinctively know that as an assembly of life stories we need building up and that is a building campaign I can get behind. I see them reaching out to include all sorts of friends. “Hey, come over! My church is doing a scavenger hunt to collect food for a food pantry,” or “Hey Mr. Donahue, could you help me tell this part of the Christmas story?” Not a building but people looking to build up others and to build with others. Whether the teens are sharing in Bible study, leading in worship, working in mission or enjoying some fellowship time, I am blessed to have a front row seat to see them growing relationships across generations.
Isn’t this the sort of building up of Romans 15 or the building in I Corinthians 3? We read in verse 9, “For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” Count me in for this building campaign! Let’s work as we are called to build up others, including them in the church and sharing the good news that through Christ we are not mired in brokenness. Let’s build relationships in which we demonstrate the fruit of the spirit. Don’t we all need a little more love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? Give me this church building any day over a cold stone hall!
Echoing Paul’s prayer in Ephesians, I long for the building campaign where people are built up to know that Christ dwells in their hearts through faith and where they are so rooted and established in love that they grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. Thanks be to God who works in and through our children to teach us the joys of simple sharing and kingdom building.
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