I Just Want to be Part of Something...

We were watching a slide show at keynote one morning at Montreat and a slide flashed of a young adult with the caption, "I just want to be part of something."  It really slammed into me.  I think,  more than any other saying about teens or young adults, that describes them exactly.  They want friends because they want to be part of something.  They constantly look for "things to do" because they want to be part of something.  They join gangs or get into real trouble because they "just want to be part of something."

That ought to be good news for the church of Jesus Christ.  Boy are we part of something.  And boy do we not act like it.  We seem a bit embarrassed to admit we get up on a Sunday to go to....church?  We can sometimes find a million reasons not to admit that we need that spiritual food along with our cheeseburger.  We find it easy to insist on practice for sports and arts and even school, but accept any excuse from ourselves or our children to miss "practice" for faith.

One of the delights of Montreat Youth Conference is the abandon with which teens 1) expect to have a God encounter, 2) wait impatiently to get in the doors at worship and keynote and fight for front seats, 3) find ways to support each other in faith, 4) share their faith openly and verbally with each other and the world.

And then we come home and under the weight of the world's disapproval we revert to our convenient, not-so-challenging practices...and we suffer for it--and God's world suffers for it.  Because as children of God, we are part of saving the world.  We are not doing the saving, thank goodness, but we carry the message of God's saving grace.  We do the work of God's hands in our world.  We point to the kingdom of God when it breaks through in the here and now; we look for the final completion of the kingdom in the future.

"I just want to be part of something."  Let me tell you...I am part of something. We are part of the biggest "something" that ever blessed the earth.  A week at Montreat youth conference will show you what might happen if we all lived every day as if it was Montreat week.  The challenge is put to us yearly to bring our Montreat blessings back to our everyday life.

Will we see each other on the front pews in Sunday worship?  Will we be waiting for the doors to open?  Will we daily find ways to support each other's faith journey?  Will we answer God's call to change the world with God's love as we share our faith openly with each other and with the world?