Place

This Five Minute Friday post was written around 7 AM on a Saturday morning while a group of girls slept in their beds in a dark cabin. No Wifi made it impossible to upload, but I was happy to have it written, even though I was sleep deprived from the night before.

START

What is this place where we are meeting? 
 Only a house, the earth it’s floor. 
 Walls and a roof, sheltering people, 
 windows for light, an open door.
 Yet it becomes a body that lives 
   when we are gathered here,
 And know our God is near

(From hymn: What is this Place)

Once upon a time, the place where I worship was a barn. By the time I started attending, it had already transformed a few times, growing as additions were added to it. It’s still a small church, sitting on a hill in full view of the centralized school district it is a part of.

Children from Pre-K through Graduate studies at the local university know what you’re talking about when you say, “I’m from the yellow church that looks like a barn.”

Yet church is only defined by the people inside of it. Without those people coming in, fellowshipping over coffee and TimBits*, worshiping, listening to the message, praying together,

STOP

and studying together, the yellow barn church would only be a building with walls, windows, chairs.

This morning I am sitting in a cabin at a Christian camp in western New York, deep in the country. This cabin is occupied also by another youth leader, who happens to be one of my best friends, and 8 girls ranging in age from 11 to 15.

Down the muddy, now snow covered road, is another building which holds all the boys and the men who came here this weekend, all of us here for our church’s youth retreat.

Together we are all sharing and learning more about God. The message to the kids this weekend is about leaning into God and asking him what they need to do in their lives to have a closer relationship with him.

The word used in last night’s message was “die-hard.” According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, die-hard means, “Strongly or fanatically determined or devoted.”

This is what we’re teaching the kids. To be “die-hards” for, or fully devoted to, Christ. To choose him, and to press in, to share about him, and to learn more about him.

These children are precious to Christ, and to us, and we want to help them follow the path God places before them.

People say it takes a village to raise a child. I say it takes a church. A church wholly devoted to the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.

*For those who have never heard of TimBits, they are doughnut holes from Tim Horton’s, found in Canada and northern US

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This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up.  Join me and others as we reflect on, and write about one word each week for only 5 minutes.

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