Youth Sunday

I've not written since the concert on the 14th and that is mainly because it has been crunch time leading up to today - which was Youth Sunday at First Presbyterian Church of Annapolis. That means that the youth group lead the worship services at both 8:30 and at 11:00.

They did a fantastic job and I am extremely proud of them.

Leading the service is only a fraction of what they did, though. They started back in late January deciding on a theme, finding relevant scripture, writing as a group, writing individually, deciding on hymns and planned the entire service. Its quite an undertaking.

Its a great way for the youth to really learn about the different components of a service and to get a better understanding (hopefully) into why we do the things that we do. Its also a great way for them to share with the congregation what is important to them and how they see faith interacting with life.

This year the theme was "Change." The heart of the service focused on five stories about change and had five mini-sermons or reflections.

The first was the story of Moses and the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. Sam read a piece that he and his sister Ellie wrote explaining how when they recently moved to the area they were lost in the wilderness of not knowing anyone at school, where their classes were, and missing familiar surroundings. He ended on a hopeful note talking about the growth that can be achieved when you embrace the changes in your life.

The second was the story of Jonah attempting to not do what God asked and ending up in the belly of a whale. Jacob's reflection talked of the futility of ignoring God's will and how it often takes something drastic or catastrophic (like a big fish) to get us to make the changes that are needed.

The third was the story of Saul (persecutor of Christians) becoming Paul the Apostle. Connor told a moving story of a friend who turned away from self destructive behaviors after friends reached out to her and provided her with a modern day "Road to Damascus" moment.

The forth was Jesus' advice to become like children in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. KC explained that kids are less set in their ways, have to deal with change more frequently than adults and are used to be dependent on others (parents, grandparents,teachers) for their basic needs.

The fifth was Psalm 46, which begins with the very recognizable "God is my refuge and my strength, a very present help in trouble" and near the end has the equally recognizable line "Be still and know that I am God." Hayley related for us the psalmist's optimism in God's presence and power despite "the world falling apart." She compared the images of a river whose streams make God glad to a grassroots movement for civil rights that eventually lead not only to equality in public spaces, but to our first African American president.

Instead of using hymns from our hymnals and having a pipe organ for accompaniment they chose modern day popular songs to compliment their service and we sang along with the CD recordings of Turn Turn Turn performed by the Byrds, Everything by Alanis Morissette (the clean edit version), and With My Own Two Hands performed by Ben Harper and Jack Johnson. And after our Prayer of Confession and Words of Assurance we celebrated by singing Feelin' Good with Nina Simone ("It's a new dawn, it's a new day, and I'm feelin' good!"). During the offering Matt, one of our eighth graders, played a very impressive saxophone solo.

What can I say? I think they are all amazing and I am so lucky to get to work with them.

Tomorrow I'm off to Princeton, NJ for a youth leader forum at Princeton Theological Seminary. I've been trying to attend this forum since I first started working with the youth. The first year I was in the job it was filled when I attempted to register. Last year I got registered in plenty of time, but had to cancel since I was still stuck on the couch recuperating from my first surgery and this year I'm finally able to attend. I'm really looking forward to it. It'll also give me a chance to visit the seminary, get a feel for the campus and the town.

Next weekend our confirmation class will meet with the elders of the church on Saturday and those wishing to do so will join the church formally on Sunday. It's a big week for me personally and for the youth of our church.

UPDATE - The mini sermons are now posted on our church's web site.

The Dead @ the Verizon Center

I went to see The Dead last night at the Verizon Center in DC. I'm not the connoisseur that my friends who I accompanied are, but it was a great show and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I don't know all the songs, but I am definately a fan. I'm not sure whether Patrice and Jim are still counting how many shows they've seen, but this was only my fourth one. I got to see them once before Jerry Garcia died and three times with various line-ups in the post-Jerry years.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concert experience of "jam bands" (i.e. Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers, Phish, etc.) it is very different than what most touring acts do. Instead of having a show that changes very little from one night to the next, these bands vary the songs from night to night and city to city. They play in a very free form style and usually improvise transitions from one song into the next (the style gets its name because they "jam" between songs and during instrumental breaks between verses). So there is a lot of enjoyment by the fans in guessing, anticipating and recognizing what song comes next. Hence each performance becomes a very rare experience and when you happen to be there on a night when "that" song was played (whatever "that" song is for you) it can be extremely special. It also means that each show can be a bit of a high wire act for the band and the fans.

Another of my favorite acts is Jimmy Buffett. He puts on a great show, but with a very different format. He'll change a handful of songs from night to night, but there are some songs that you know you'll hear any time you see him. There is very little chance of seeing a bad version of Margarittaville because you will not see Buffett without hearing his signature song. With jam bands, you may or may not get to hear "that song" and even if you do the lyrics may get flubbed or the muscians may not be as tight as if they played it every night. But when they are having a good night, like last night, the pay off is big.

For those that are interested, here is the set list for last night's show -

(Set 1)
Cassidy
Passenger
Pride of Cucamonga
Easy Wind (Warren vocals)
Lazy River Road
Alabama Getaway (Warren vocals)
Big Railroad Blue
(Set 2)
Peggy-O (acoustic)
Glory Road (acoustic)
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (acoustic)
Space>
Dark Star>
King Solomon's Marbles>
Drums>
Come Together>
Dark Star>
Sugar Magnolia (with Tipper Gore on drums)
(Encore)
Uncle John's Band>
Ripple

Yes, you read that right....Tipper Gore sat in and played the drums last night for one song. You never know what you're gonna get at a Dead show. I'm guessing that means that Al Gore was somewhere in one of the luxury boxes (or back stage). Rumor has it that Nancy Pelosi is a big fan and is at most of the local shows, so she might have been there too. Patrice and I even spotted Tucker Carlson after the show and I took a picture of her with him.

One other unique aspect is The Dead allow fans to record their shows to share with each other. Here is a recording of last night's performance that was posted on archive.org by one of the tapers. It's not the same as being there, but it is the next best thing.

Obama and Where the Wild Things Are

It's no secret that I'm a fan of our new president and after today's Easter Egg roll even more so. They had story time and President Obama read my all time favorite children's book, Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, to the children gathered on the White House lawn.

Based on the YouTube clip below I'd say he obviously knows and loves the book and has spent a fair amount of time reading to his daughters.


And for those of you that are big fans of the book too check out what is going to hit theaters in October!!!

Taizé and the Covenant Circles

I want to share with you something that I have participated in for the last five weeks and thoroughly enjoyed. Throughout the season of Lent, First Presbyterian Annapolis offered special programming on Wednesday evenings. We had our last Covenant Circle gathering last night and it was a great experience. Associate Pastor Heather Shortlidge organized this opportunity for members of our congregation to gather within small groups of parishioners around several different topics.

• Senior Pastor Bill Hathaway led a DVD discussion series featuring Walter Brueggemann.
• Debbie Mitchell led a book discussion on Sue Monk Kidd's The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
• Music Director Marc Boensel led a Masterwork Chorale
• Elizabeth Hancock led a group called Sanctuary Creations
• Marion Schilder led a group through Guided Meditation
• Yours truly led a Taizé group.

The main down side was not being able to join one of the other circles. I would have loved to have participated in any of these groups.
Taizé (pronounced teh -zay) is a style of worship that is named after a location in France where an ecumenical community of brothers live and worship. I was first introduced to Taizé several years ago by my good friend LeAnn Hodges who is the former Associate Pastor of our church. Taizé worship is very contemplative with periods of silence and repetitive singing/chanting. Before this year I had participated in three separate series of Taizé services, but this was my first time leading them on my own.

The weekend before our first Covenant Circle gathering, I was extremely fortunate to get to participate in an event that was held in Baltimore in late February. A brother from Taizé came to Baltimore and led a two day event of prayer, small group discussions and fellowship.

Those who took part in the Baltimore weekend were a very diverse group. “Only a Taizé gathering could bring together such a variety of people,” remarked one participant. All the age-groups were represented, from children to the elderly, including many students and young adults, from different denominations, races and backgrounds. Most of the participants came from the greater Baltimore area, but some traveled from Pennsylvania, Washington, New York, Virginia, New Jersey and even Chicago. A number of Polish people came, recent immigrants to the United States who had often been to Taizé and taken part in European meetings. One does not often find such a diversified group praying together and reflecting on important questions, in a land where tolerance often simply means that each individual is free to “do their own thing” independently of the others.

This excerpt is from the article A Pilgrimage of Trust in Baltimore on the Taizé web site. It was a fantastic experience and gave me lots of ideas to draw upon for the five services that I led. There are some great pictures here (yes those are familiar dreads in the second picture)

The picture above is the space that we used for our Wednesday night services. I converted the Middle School room each week into a make shift sanctuary. It was the perfect size for our group which had between eight and twelve people from week to week.

I would love to visit the community in France and participate in one of their week long pilgrimages. To experience the singing, prayer, and scripture read in many different languages along with thousands of other pilgrims from all over the world would be amazing.

You can listen to some of the songs and a few minutes of their prayer services here.