Proverbs 3:5-6 (NCV)
Trust the LORD with all your heart,
and don’t depend on your own understanding.
Remember the LORD in all you do,
and he will give you success.

There is one thing that is always true about Youth Sunday: it’s never the same twice. Each year is different, unique, inimitable, unrepeatable, special in its own way. 2021 will be remembered as a pandemic event, yes, but also as representing a huge step forward in our journey toward coming together again.

For the first time since February of 2020 we scheduled two in-person worship services. Of course both were modified, with all the COVID-conscious temperature-taking, and masking, and distancing, and lack of singing etc. But yesterday there were enough people on campus to fill the space with a special kind of energy, enough to make us begin to feel connected again. Sharing a Sunday morning with so many wonderful folk made our hearts sing.

Rebekah probably talked to every single person in the sanctuary at both services. She gets such energy from them! It is as if love itself is a renewable energy source, a power that grows more potent as it is shared, more charged with life when we come together.

The teens did a great job (as you can see in this video “Youth Sunday, a New Adventure”), but I also managed to grab some powerful still images. So I hope you will take a moment to look through this set of photographs. And, as you do, give thanks to God for the promise of tomorrow and the faithful witness of the young people who are being nurtured in their faith at Wake Forest Presbyterian Church.

In love, and because love makes all this possible – DEREK