If there is anything that summer youth ministry internship will teach you, it is that very fact. You wake up earlier than everyone for breakfast or meetings, and you tell people 'shhh' until the cows come home, for they do enjoy their pillow talk. But most of all, someone has to stay up on the all-nighter to make sure couples don't sneak off, or overdose on oreos. Thus, my friday evening.
Last week I had the privilege of experiencing Montreat, North Carolina. A place I had only heard about from friends and professors, that when mentioned would bring a joyous glaze to the face of the speaker. Needless to say I had some rather high expectations on my way there (which was about an 11 hr van ride, so I had a lot of time to think about those expectations). On reaching the beloved mecca of the PCUSA, I wasn't sorely disappointed. We stayed in a nice little house, and drove in to the retreat center each day, which was sized just right, and beautifully situated among the Blue Ridge mountains. But worship? left a bit to be desired.
A Seminarian's Critique:
Montreat offers week long conferences in the summer to high school aged youth. This year's theme was 'The World On Fire' - potentially a great theme, but that all depends on how you use it. Is the fire good? Is the fire bad? It was never really made clear. I believe the intention was to explore both the good and the bad attributes of fire, but the message was bottom line, confusing. The morning speaker seemed to stay on the shallower end of her messages, which also had great potential but were lacking depth. The evening pastor presented a pretty good message, once you got past his meter and cadence. But both still operated from a position that everyone in the audience has a basic understanding of the gospel, when that is not true! And reflects a great injustice of youth ministry today - we assume that any child brought up in the Christian Church knows their Bible stories and therefore knows God, the gospel, etc. But Sunday school, it seems to me, does a rather poor job of making it real. Of bringing it home. So at places like Montreat it seems essential to revisit the basics of our faith - our sinful nature, God's redemption through Christ, what that means for our lives, and not just that last part. We got into a lot of social-gospelesque messages, which I am happy to encourage, because we need to be finding ways in which to help our neighbor whether it is at home, in our nation, or across the world. But if we don't have a central focus on Christ and a better understanding of who God is in our lives, then we can easily be misled.
Overall I loved the trip, but I think that was mostly because of who I traveled with. These students are phenomenal. My co-workers, there are no words to describe how wonderful they are. And they continue to surprise me with new gifts they have to share!
And given my general unsatisfactory attitude about the speakers, I did have a seminarian nerd-out moment over one of the sermons/talks. Put these two together: The tower of Babel, and Pentecost. It will blow your mind.
Oh, and there are no pictures because I forgot my camera in Seattle ... but they mailed it to me, so here I come, Great Escape!
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