About Our Youth

When I was growing up my mom had these set of ceramic ducks outside our front door that she would dress up depending on the season. They wore pilgrim outfits in November, Santa outfits in December… and yes, even ghost costumes in October.

While my mom made an impression with her benign version of silliness, many today try to make an impression by being shocking, brass, or even rude. Christ warns us that one day we will give account for every idle work we speak. We should be careful for those morsels of gossip we look for on social media, we ought to take the words of wisdom of Proverbs to heart, and the stories of Courage in the Bible and of our Orthodox Saints for inspiration. That is what our fall and winter lineup is all about.  

We hope to inspire our teens to make an impression this season based on something that matters - something that brings people together in love instead of pushing people away - even if it is seemingly as silly as ceramic ducks.

If you've ever worked in an office, you'll probably relate to the experienced frustration of IT personnel minimizing your computer disaster with the simple advice of "reboot your computer." Frustrating, but effective.

God can and does the same thing in our lives if we just trust in Him.  As we see in the lives of Ruth and Naomi, God turns tragedy to honor, rags to riches, and a cursed heritage into a blessing. This month, we hope to encourage our teens to trust God not only in the best of times, but in the worst of times - ESPECIALLY in the worst of times because it is those moments that God uses to set us up for an Ultimate Reset.

Have you heard of the phrase Revertigo?  Its a thing - Google says so.  Its the tendency of a person to revert back to an older version of themselves when around people from their past.  It explains why when we travel back to our hometown for a weekend visit, our maturity declines a couple decades hanging out with old childhood friends.  Or why siblings can laugh until their sides hurt over inside jokes as if they just happened.  And yet, we are in fact grown adults with real responsibilities.  

Sometimes the phenomenon also happens during Lent - we hit the time of year as if it is just a "default" season and revert to whatever we think we ought to be doing or reading or eating (or not eating).  Lent is supposed to be a forward journey, and it is supposed to be new every year.  Christ has something new to teach us every year.  In writing our Lent series, "Follow Me" I was astonished at the artificial roadblocks we put up ourselves to stand in the way of our journey in following Christ - our fears, our pressures, our identity, logic... and yes, our revertigo.  This Lent, let's not be like the Nazarenes who rejected Jesus in His own town, failing to see the Divinity through the Humanity and instead embrace the invitation to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him.