Receiving a blessing

I just returned yesterday from a remarkable 7 day experiment in Christian community in Huntersville, NC by the name of Salkehatchie.  Awash with emotion and overwhelmed with fatigue, I'm trying to make sense or put to paper the awakenings that were stirred within me over those 168 hours.  It's almost an impossible task.  Yet,  this morning, a 15 year-old young man helped me do that.  He gave me a few words that I now give to you.  It may have been the best birthday gift I received.

I welcomed my birthday with a charge-wide service led by our youth who recounted the stories and experiences of a week in service and mission to the glory of God.  Not only did their stories become the message for the day, they each took a role in the regular order of service.  For the prayers of the people, one young man came forward, asked everyone to bow with him in prayer, knelt at the altar, and began to pray.  As he closed his prayer, he added these words:  "And thank you God for sending us such a great preacher who really cares about us, and wants to do stuff with us."  Normally, I avoid such praise or attention like the plague.  But today, it only added to this week-long awakening and it meant the world to a 32 year old preacher who is still trying to figure out what it means to live into his calling.  It meant the world and it also gave me some words for these past 7 days - words I wanted to share with you.

After ten years, ten weeks, and 1,680 hours of experimental Christian community, Salkehatchie- Huntersville closed a chapter in a life-transforming supplement to the greatest story ever told.  Ten years ago, Jerry & Mona Kita answered a call to ministry and today we are still trying to find the words to describe a ripple of resurrection that has spread across the Carolinas.  I wish I had a better way of saying thank you or of singing praises of thanksgiving to my God like never before.  Perhaps the only way I know of doing that is to offer a blessing.  So, receive this blessing:  "Thank you God for sending us such great preachers, like Jerry & Mona, who really care about us and want to do stuff with us."  The "service" has ended, the mission begins.