This week, I got the high and holy privilege to volunteer with Camp Create in my church, our week-long summer children’s event. Our theme – Better Together – played out in five mornings of creating: cooking, science, music, drama, lettering and painting. This glorious week was chock full of giggles, bubbles, songs, squirt-gun painting, and exactly the amount of high energy you might think. I stayed caffeinated each morning.
On the last day, our story was about Pentecost. Leading up to Pentecost Sunday, Associate Pastor Ruth did a beautiful job inviting the children to wonder about the “birthday of the Church.” Then, she gave each child a red ribbon to hold as they fashioned a prayer of thankfulness or concern. As they tied the ribbons together, they could choose to say their prayer aloud or keep it a silent prayer. The heap of loud, energetic children became silent as they took their task very seriously. Ruth let each child have a turn to tie their red ribbons to hers.
I added my silent prayers to theirs. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.
My prayers are tied up with yours. My prayers are tied up with women and men around the world who offer prayers
for peace.
for their families to be well.
for a job where they can thrive.
for their loneliness to ease. for community.
for the safety of their sons and daughters.
for strength to face this day.
for a place at the table.
We are praying.
I’m thinking, today, of this thought from NT Wright about Pentecost and prayer:
“Thy kingdom come, he taught us to pray, on earth as in heaven. The disciples, we may presume, had been praying that prayer, among others, in the fifty days since Easter. And now the prayer is answered: like so many answered prayers, answered not in the way they might have imagined but in the much greater way which takes up their prayers and welds them into a new reality, the reality God intended all along and towards which their prayers were advance signposts.”
On my favorite day of the Church Year, I celebrate the Church. I celebrate the signposts that God is making this new reality.
Thanks be to God for . . .
Things that no longer work. Things that are laid to rest so that new life can grow.
Taking risks
A wide table. Growing wider all the time
Access to rich resources for deepening our own spiritual well
People who have the microphone and use it to speak truth
Songs and hymns that can move us to response
Training for the Church’s leaders that considers the realities of this time and season
Voices we lost this year. New voices.
And most of all . . .
That my boy runs full speed down the center aisle of an old sanctuary and calls it his church. May it be so. May it be a home for him, for his faith, for his whole self.
May we be the Church our children need us to be.
