The Gathering

I realized tonight how incredibly tragic it would have been had I let these fifteen weeks go by and never taken a moment to celebrate the youth of the local church. Words can not justly describe how invaluable was work that Joel Daniel Harris, Mike Suit and many others did to bring together dozens of local churches from a range of denominations into an intentional time of common worship and celebration.

The Gathering, Spring 2013 was titled Rise Up. At The Gathering, several hundred middle-school and high-school-aged students were led in worship by parts of the Rivertree Christian Church worship team. 

"Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

The words from Ephesians 5:14 were brought to the hundred of youth in the dark auditorium tonight by Matt Brumfield along with a challenge to let Christ truly awaken our faith and let it transform every aspect our lives (thematic of many of my conversations and posts recently). Following the brief message, Andrew Berg led us in a soaring melody of these very words, "Wake up," and the youth were instructed to break off into their respective youth groups and spend time praying through what it would look like for them to be woken up by Christ and their faith lived out every single day.

The sound of hundreds of voices praying, countless knees on the ground, endless strings of hands clasping hands, all raising praise and requests, thanksgivings and supplications before a Holy God. All done by those between 11 and 18 years of age. I couldn't help but be reminded of my own youth group days, and the kind of fiery, abandoned faith with which I lived, spoke, and worshiped. The passion of youth is irreplaceable.

Tonight's event also included a time of offering, which was collected and donated to the non-profit TomTod Ideas (website in progress, more on TomTod Ideas here., an organization dedicated to helping middle school students launch absurd ideas to rebuild a broken world.

Thanks so much, Joel Daniel, Mike, and the many others who worked countless hours to bring The Gathering together. It's truly beautiful when the church of God puts aside its theological and doctrinal differences for the sake of worshiping God together and working together to challenge the youth of the body of Christ to rise up and change the Kingdom.