My Personal Spirituality

Rockville United Church
Kristen May

March 23, 2007

According to my records, you have not had to listen to me ramble on up here for a year and a half. I hope that was enough recuperation time. I stand here before you today in a difficult position. I spend most of my time up in Connecticut at school and am, therefore, no longer one of those regular attendees who gets to check that little box in those handy blue books. I am planning on studying Religion at school as my major...although I have yet to actually take a course in the Religion department. And now I am being asked to speak to you in a sermon-type format. So this leaves me as a no longer very present member of your community who has no training in sermonizing to speak to you for the next few minutes about the topic at hand. Speaking of which, what is the topic at hand? Since it appears as though this service was meant to be lead by the recent high school graduates of this church who have left to pursue their own lives, I’m going to guess that I should share some of my recent personal spirituality and how this might affect your own lives, or the lives of those around you. That sounds like a plan.

A church is only as prosperous as its youngest members. The only way for such an institution to survive is for it to educate each new generation as they come of age. As our society moves into the future of science, technology and ever changing truths and expectations, the church is often left behind, particularly by those who have the most power to bring the teachings of Jesus into the next decades. Losing touch with the young generations is suicide for the church, as I am sure many of you know. I believe that there is a reason why each of us is present in church this morning. Particularly for those who are here of their own free will, this excludes the “Mommy made me come” crowd, I truly believe that something stuck with each of us early on in our lives that made coming to church something that is at the least relaxing or comforting. For my part, I come to church thanks to a spirituality and faith that was cultivated in me through my growing up as a camper at the National Capital Presbytery’s Camp Glenkirk, now relocated and named Meadowkirk. For eight summers, the gift of a Christian community outside of RUC, one that was run by strong, devoted college-aged counselors, was given to me. As I grew older and many of my peers lost faith in God and the Church, the counselors at Glenkirk became mentors and role models, the cool older kids who could now share their answers to the tougher questions of faith. They were inspirational and with enthusiastic leadership and personal testimonies to how they remained true to their faith and their God, they inspired me to dream about one day being a counselor myself, and passing on whatever wisdom I had incurred to my own group of campers. I got that chance this past summer.

One of my biggest worries going into this summer was that the enthusiasm in the staff would be lost since summer camp had been postponed for a few years while permits and construction on the new site wore on. But my fears proved unnecessary. The new staff at Meadowkirk, which actually combined old staff and previous campers with some new faces, was just as upbeat and positive as ever. The strong desire to pass on the love of God in an exciting way filled our two weeks of staff training and was deeply instilled in us as counselors. A few churches brought their Vacation Bible School programs to us, but for the bulk of the summer, week-long programs brought kids of different age groups to camp. I remember one girl who came to camp on a scholarship with two of her friends from a children’s center in Anacostia, D.C. Vicky, as I will call her today, came across as a very strong-willed type who was opinionated but, in her own way, sincere. The first day she announced that the boy who had come with her from “the Center”, as they called it, needed our help.
“ We should pray for Sam,” she told me with a wide grin. “He’s crazy.” Sam smiled and shook his head slowly. He was used to her teasing. After a hearty laugh, Michael, my co-counselor for the week and a Baptist seminary student, replied, “Looks like we’re ALL gonna need lots of prayer this week.” Vicky, as I soon learned, was not someone who spent much time in the outdoors. Our daily nature hikes were something of an ordeal with her. The bugs and the dirt were top on her list of complaints. Michael and I frequently told her we’d pray for her and the bugs. By the last few days of camp, however, she would come up to me every few hours to remind me that she hadn’t complained about the stuff she didn’t like.
“ And I said nothing about that looooong hike back up that really steep, annoying hill, Kristen.” She had smiled and laughed the entire way up that hill. I learned later that she went back to the center and told her friends that she had a great time and wanted to come back next summer. Passing on a love of creation, singing to the love of the sea and the sky and the trees like we hear in Psalm 148 was a joy to do for Vicky and every other camper who came to camp last summer.

So that is my story. Camp brought me back to faith, something I had almost lost before this summer, and I am a strong believer that outdoor ministry is an excellent way to pass on a ministry of love. And no, I have no plans to become a preacher later on, although I am open to whatever plans God sees fit for me. My biggest plans at the moment are (maybe not in this order) New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day parties, going back to school in January and spending my summer passing on one of the most valuable gifts I have ever received to the campers who come to Meadowkirk.

Let us be the magical lover kings and queens God made possible for us in Christ so that we secure the world not by war, but with the political power of the warrior we see in the Jesus, we saw celebrated in the Hosanna Palm Sunday parade, in the Jesus we saw washing the feet of his disciples, in the Christ we saw on the cross and the Christ we see leaving the tomb and entering into each one of us, each one of us, this day! That is our hope, and our new Reality, Christ is in us today! Amen.