I was once again blessed by Jennie Murray's abilities and gifts as a youth director. To see the ways she ministers to and interacts with our youth truly thrills my soul. I am so grateful that the staff parish committee made the right decision and hired her. Jennie has become a best friend, family member, and ministry partner to Daphne and me and we love her dearly. I don't think the youth realize quite how blessed they are to have her for a youth minister, but they do realize, and they realize more each opportunity they have to share with her.
We had a wonderful weekend at the Nashville Convention Center. The youth connected with other youth groups across our district and conference. More importantly, the youth connected with each other in ways I had not previously seen. Most importantly, the youth connected with God in ways I had not previously seen.Throughout the weekend Ray Buckley continued to inspire me and floor me. I had read his beautiful books and met him once before but had never heard him address an audience. A gifted Christian Native-American storyteller, Ray was an unconventional choice for keynote speaker for a youth event. I am so happy he was chosen. We were all blessed indeed.
On Saturday I led the two workshops with the Grace Youth Worship Team on what it means to play in a youth worship team. The workshops went very well. The band was great (even when I wasn't) and somehow I successfully squeezed a two hour seminar into a thirty minute seminar.
As a band, we coveted the sound system we were able to use for our sessions. The system we use at the family life center is woefully ancient and somewhat unreliable. This one was newer and sounded very warm and nice. One member of the band (who shall remain nameless) joked that if we took it no one would notice. We decided that Encounter and the convention center would notice and it would probably be best to leave it. Plus the speakers were too large to fit on the bus.
Because the worship team led workshop sessions 1 and 3, I was able to go with Jennie, Daphne, and several youth to Jenny Youngman's workshop on Taize during session 2. Taize is a community of brothers in the village of Taize, France that has dedicated their lives to prayer. Every year thousands of young people flock to the community to experience the lifestyle these men lead. Each day when the bell tolls they hold services of prayer that contain beautiful sung prayers, spoken prayer, shared scripture and silence.
After learning some history and some songs from Taize, we participated in a Taize worship service from Jenny's excellent book, Worship Feast Taize Services, from the wonderful Worship Feast line. We sang the songs, experienced the silence and read along as one of our youth, David Norris, eloquently read a scripture.
When we left the service I was thrilled to hear that several of the Grace youth loved the service and wanted to bring a taste of Taize back to Grace!
Like Ray Buckley, Hannah, one of our middle school girls, also continues to inspire me and floor me with beyond-her-years wisdom, humor, and compassion. After the final workshop Hannah (a singer on the team) bought a book from the Cokesbury table. The space we used for the workshop was the room in which Encounter, the college age version of WIW, was meeting. Hannah didn't want something from the youth table downstairs, she wanted a book from the college table, Frederick Buechner's Beyond Words. Now that's certainly not typical reading for a seventh grader. The Sunday before WIW Daphne told Hannah, half joking, that Hannah would end up being a preacher. Hannah smiled and excitedly said something like, "I told my sisters that just the other night!" Hannah is already ministering to the youth of our church. After the final workshop on Saturday, as we finished packing the musical equipment into the corner of the room, Michael asked me what it means to give one's life to Christ. Before I knew it the two of us were sitting in an empty hallway praying together as Michael accepted Christ into his life. He had a lot of questions and God gave me good answers to share. For nearly two hours we shared words, tears, laughter, and prayer. We used all of "free time" to do this and we are both grateful. Jennie and Daphne showed up in perfect time to rejoice and pray with us in thanks for the change in Michael's heart. Michael is an example of the miraculous work God is doing in our youth group and I am honored to be here to witness it.
Michael, our worship team's new drummer, has been coming to Grace for a a little more than a month and has become a very dear friend to me and to everyone else who crosses his path. The youth group prayed for Michael for several weeks before he even came to Grace. We were thrilled that cold Wednesday night, just a few weeks before Christmas, when he first attended a youth meeting.
As we left the closing worship service at the historic Ryman Auditorium--often called the Mother Church of Nashville--we walked out into warm weather and sunlight with warmth in our hearts. As we took the bus back to the church, loud voices, laughter, and occasional spontaneous singing of the weekend's theme "Sanctuary" filled the bus.
When we returned to the Family Life Center the group circled up and, with right arm over left. held hands as we do every Sunday and Wednesday night. During this time we share prayer concerns and the UMY benediction. For the past several months, Hannah has always said "I want to pray for this youth group."
This weekend we saw her prayer being answered in ways that none of us could have imagined.
So, until next time, "May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."
