grace in the 'cuse

The harvest is plentiful but the laborers...

One of the joys of our parish life right now is the month-old Wednesday Youth Program.  Each Wednesday kids gather at the church for homework helpers and then stay for dinner and youth group ending with Compline by candlelight.

When I arrived home late last night after traveling back from the Transformation and Renewal conference at Kanuga (in western North Carolina) and the first day of Central NY's diocesan convention I was met with an email alert that probably every priest craves.  Essentially it said, "Help!  We've got too many kids for the number of adults--what are we going to do?" 

What a great problem!  Especially after spending a week at a conference with other churches who can't figure out how to engage their youth.  We have a small number--about a dozen--but it is growing every week.  What a blessed thing--but oh boy do we need more adults to help out. 

The kids are really hungry for community and support and the kind of love that Grace Church gives so easily--we just need to figure out how to keep up.  It really does take a village doesn't it?

Outer Darkness

So the question I keep asking myself is why is updating this blog so difficult?  God, the church, my vocation are my passion--I breathe it nearly every minute of every day.  And yet, writing about it isn't the first thing I want to do each day.  Hmmm.  There'e all that work I do to prepare to preach each week--that takes some of my writing energy.  I started a blog--the food one--in the first place as a way to step out of the church scene for a few minutes each day. 

Part of it is that I think about church--the people, growing it, our finances, the spiritual health of our kids--all the time and I'm too tired--lazy--to put all those jumbled thoughts into cohesive and interesting posts that someone else might care to read.  Ah--there it is.  So what to do?

I'm not quite ready to give up on church blogging yet.  I think I still need to find my voice, though. 

This week's gospel is from Matthew--a parable about the talents.  How convenient since I'm preaching about stewardship for several weeks in a row.  But in typical Episcopal fashion, the last line of the pericope is cut from our Sunday lectionary--that part about folks being cast into the outer darkness.  After preaching about Matthew, Jesus and judgement for much of the summer and early fall I'm not exactly dying to deal with it again.  But it is telling that we choose to omit this line.  Of course, the rest of the lesson is harsh enough in asking the question of what do we with the gifts God has given us?  Really.  Though not evident here, I've been told that I have a gift for writing--a gift I should be using for bringing on the reign of God.  But I think God want us to put/use the gifts we have been given in the places where they are needed most--it may be that the blogosphere is not it--but then again....maybe it is. 

The thing is, we never really know the extent to which our gifts and talents impact the world.  But we'll never have a clue if we don't offer them in the first place.