Train children in the way they should go;
when they grow old, they won’t depart from it. – Proverbs 22:6
Personally, I enjoy immersion in our church community year round. However, given the undeniable fact that for many people the summer months are essentially sabbatical in nature, the traditional early September “Coming together again” is always a great day. This Sunday did not disappoint.
We celebrated “Rally Day”, signaling the beginnings of a new year in Christian Education, and the morning hit me positively on several counts:
- I have been asked to “guest teach” the youngest demographic of the three adult ed classes here at HMPC. This is an amazing privilege. The group is called “Finding Your Faith” and it is where our parents with school-aged children (plus a few others) tend to gather.
- Rebekah and Andrea (our director for children and youth) did a “blessing of the backpacks” during worship, gathering the children together for prayer. This was a powerful moment, especially in realizing the critically important connection between our local schools and the church community.
- The energy present during worship was inspirational.
Once again – especially as Rebekah’s message focused on our essential and foundational reason for being as a congregation – I found myself wondering about the correlation between participation in faith-based community and the definitive character of The American Soul.
What I mean by that phrase – the definitive character of The American Soul – is the unique balance of independence and interdependence, of disagreement and compromise, of “my way” and “our way,” of belief and of cynicism, of interconnectedness, and of respect for the ideals set out by our founders – all that has allowed us to forge the unique amalgam of community that requires above all for us to trust one another.
And there is no substitute for practicing the sense of community that is so critical than in church. This nation absolutely needs the faith component, or we will no longer be who we know all the way to our bones that we really are.
This is not a question of what we prioritize for family activities Sunday mornings; this is a question of our core identity as a people. I believe we still know who we really are; my question, especially coming out of “Rally Day” is this: “How will the next generation know if you yourself have almost forgotten?”
As for us, we will be here in church – DEREK
