04-30-23

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 30, 2023
As I shared a few days ago, today is Youth Sunday. If you are anywhere near Cypress Creek Christian Church, I believe you would be blessed to experience what the youth have prepared. Though it has been many years, I can remember the Youth Sundays when I was a youth. In my younger years, I welcomed people and passed out bulletins. In late Jr. High, I had a very small part in a skit. By the time I was a Junior and Senior in High School, I was giving part of the sermon and presiding at the Communion Table. People were so kind to me after worship, providing affirmation and encouragement. Those words were not the most significant part of my call to ministry, but they were most definitely a component of God’s nudging. I’m not suggesting any of our youth who we will hear speak today will go on to ordained ministry, but I’m not saying one or two of them won’t. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians about how God enabled them to live out God’s good purposes (2:13), and I believe God uses the church (the individual members of the body) in the work of enabling and empowering. I hope what we are doing right now with our youth will continue to have an impact in twenty years as some of them will find themselves called to sing in worship, serve as a Sunday School teacher, visit the hospitalized, volunteer at NAM, serve as a leader on a youth mission trip, counsel at church camp, etc. Of course, some of our youth are already doing a number of these things. In every moment, the church is about encouraging, enabling, and empowering the individual members of the church, no matter their age, for the good purposes of God.

​For what needs to be accomplished in this world, O Lord God, we trust your Spirit at work in the community of the faithful. Part of our task is to encourage and empower one another, and with Jesus as our model, we pray for this task to be done. Amen.