For the last two weeks we’ve been discussing how we can “mission our worship,” meaning how we can take the elements of our worship service and translate them to mission related activities.  We started out talking about mission as a way to live out the command to “love our neighbor.”  We discussed the first element of our worship services, the Call to Worship, as a call coming from God to us as God’s people  We respond to that call through the rest of our worship service.  Likewise, God keeps calling us in other times throughout the week to engage in things that can help our neighbors; be that prayer, sharing resources with those in need, or sharing our time and talents to help others.

​This is the second of a series of posts about how we can take our worship life out into the realm of mission.  In our first post, we talked about YMCo’s definition of mission… which is essentially obeying the commandment to “love our neighbor.”  And, of course, if we want to love our neighbor we need to know something about our neighbor and the life that they are living.

​We also discussed that the first part of worship in many of our churches is typically the Call to Worship.  God does the “calling.”  We do the responding to that call throughout the rest of the service.  Likewise, God is also “doing the calling” for us to engage in acts of mission– throughout the week and throughout our lives.  So every time we read a headline, hear a news story, or see a situation where people are in need, we must be attentive to the call that God is making and consider how we will respond to it.

​Last Sunday I had the pleasure of participating in a video call with the youth group of Trinity Presbyterian Church of Fairhope, Alabama.  The topic was discussing how we connect our worship life with our lives of Christian service.  I very much enjoyed the chat, and it led to some great conversation among the Youth Mission Co staff.  The result of this inspiration is a short blog series where we will break down a worship service into its various parts, and then discuss how each part of worship relates to Christian mission.  We will also give some examples of how we can “mission our worship” through some simple acts of service.

​I feel like it’s only appropriate for me to start out by introducing myself. So, Hi! I am Parker Barnes. I am a rising sophomore at Campbell University where I study Communications and Christian Ministry. I found Raleigh Youth Mission when Katherine Blankenship came to Campbell’s connections, which is kinda like chapel, but cooler, and told us about what she does in downtown Raleigh. I immediately knew that I wanted in. I had, just the weekend prior, been talking to my mom about how I had been praying about what God wanted me to do over the summer. I was pretty much a dead tie between interning at a nonprofit and being a camp counselor. So when Katherine gave her talk at connections I knew RYM was for me. I walked my smiling and joy filled self up to the stage and told Katherine with confidence “RYM is what God wants me to do this summer.” Katherine, probably freaked out said, “well the application will be out soon.” And from then on I knew that I would be spending my summer in downtown Raleigh.

​Last week I had the opportunity to take a group of young people to Church of the Advocate, a regular mission site for AYM throughout the summer. Church of the Advocate is an open-arms congregation, welcoming any and all to come worship, have a meal, and create community with one another. My group and I joined the congregation for worship, and, although most of the service is traditional, part of the sermon includes allowing people in the crowd to share their thoughts on scripture.

Before I go further with the story, I’d like for you to take a moment to visualize what this crowd looked like…physically, emotionally, mentally. The service took place outside in a courtyard. It was completely open, an inviting space for anyone who may be walking down the street. There were people from every walk of life…some live inside, some live outside. Some are healthy, some are sick with mental or physical illness. Some face daily prejudice because of who they are, and some do not. Many of these people are commonly ignored by the everyday tourist-crowd of Asheville because they are, according to most of society, “different” from the rest of us. That being said, for many people in the crowd, this service was the only day this week they had the opportunity to share their opinion with people who care. This led to some interesting and uneasy topics during that day’s worship service, throwing my group off-guard. After everyone had shared, the service soon came to a close, and my group and I had a chance to reflect on what we had experienced.  

​It’s the last week of this summer of Mission Immersion, and on this Tuesday night after program, this group was heading to the Marble Slab to grab some ice cream, and invited my fellow Intern Will, and myself to join. When we walked into the ice cream shop, our adult leader decided to cover the entire group and then the other four people in front of us in line. The first of these was a young man, whom appeared to be in his late teens, early twenties. He had just purchased a cone, and then once he found out it was covered, asked if he could get some ice cream to accompany it, as he only had enough money to get the cone. After receiving his cup of butter pecan, he took a seat at a table under a window, and a few of our youth and an adult sat down and started chatting with him.

​The world we live in today is overrun by desires and notions that we must all live the perfect life and have everything figured out.  If we mess up then we become outcasts by our peers, our friends, the media, or even society. We are told that not reaching these goals are caused by not working hard enough, not wanting it, that we are lazy, or that we intentionally did it to ourselves. We have turned into a world where egocentrism thrives as a result of this. As a culture, we masquerade in cities where the facades are beautiful but all the while the interiors are crumbling. This is how many of us live our lives, lost in the haze of the mountain just trying to get through another day without falling apart. How then can we find ourselves if we don’t even know where we are?

The following is a reflection by an Asheville Youth Mission participant, Cate O’Malley, who came to AYM this summer with her group from Sugar Creek Presbyterian Church in Kettering, Ohio.  She shared this with her congregation after returning from Asheville. 

​So, I’d like to start out with the question “What are you hungry for?” And I don’t mean what do you want for lunch after church today, but what are you HUNGRY for? Like you’ve heard already, one of the work sites we went to was the Lord’s Acre where their motto is “Everybody is hungry for something and everybody has something to give”. Some of us are hungry for new adventures and experiences. Some of us are hungry for assurance and affirmation from others. Some of us are hungry to get out there and serve.

Here is video and spoken word poem written, performed, and produced by one of our Memphis Youth Mission interns.  May these words and images inspire all of us to be more welcoming and open to where God is calling us to be.

​Imagine a whiteboard. A big one, extending far beyond the limits of your sight. Just a big ole blank white board, waiting to be filled in. Zoom out, and see all the whiteboards, exactly the same humongous size as the first, filling up space in a grid of colored marker and explosions of thought on erasable canvas. Whiteboards as far as you can see, with words and symbols and blobs, some with moving pictures, others playing music, some connected by strings of yarn and others covered in sticky notes. And one, off in a corner,blank. A marker sits on the tray, uncapped. But nothing is drawn.