Last Thursday The Hope Center threw the annual Awards Ceremony bash. It’s my favorite day of the year at work. The neighborhood comes together and we get a chance to celebrate all of the ways that the kids have grown over the last year. As the kids get older and we have more teenagers, the joy is magnified as that demographic at THC stands apart from their peers.
When I think back on the year, I tend to be drawn to the academic improvements the kids make. Those achievements tend to be more measurable. GPA’s, reading levels, class attendance. All very measurable and packageable.
Some of the awards we give out are academic. A lot of them are character based, and reflect characteristics of God that we want to reinforce when we see them lived out by the kids. Service. Leading peers in a positive direction. Kindness. Love.
There are stories behind each of those awards. Stories about the kids who won the awards this year. Stories about kids who have won the awards in the past.
What the awards don’t do is tell the stories of how the kids have grown as a GROUP. I had forgotten that until I got a text today from one of the adults who helps out with the Teenage Bible Study. She and her husband bring their pre-school age daughter (J) and pre-pre-school age son (W) each week. It’s a good program for accompanied shorties, because they love to worship with the teenagers. And with the worship at TBS looking similar to Black Church worship, the kids aren’t a distraction. There is already swaying, dancing, hand-raising.
Clap with me, now.
Which all brings me back to the text I got this morning from J’s mom…
Thought you might chuckle knowing that w TBS as Js only real worship exper, she was a hand raiser yesterday in catholic mass. Oh man…
I did chuckle when I found that out. And I was taken back to that place. That room on Wednesday nights. The little kids are there and so are the teenagers. They are worshiping. TBS is the only real worship experience for those teenagers because only one of those kids goes to church with any regularity. Three summers ago when we started teaching this group of kids what worship looked like, it was a struggle. An epic struggle, even.
You don’t notice it on a week-to-week basis. But as a group the teenagers grew in both their understanding and expression of worship. They’re getting it. As I look back it makes me smile to think of how much they’ve grown. As I look ahead it makes me smile to think about what the kids will look like as individuals and as a group as they continue to grow spiritually.
We don’t have a group worship award at THC. So that story doesn’t get told, and I don’t remember it unless some little girl raises her hands to worship during mass and her mom texts me about it the next day.
Thank goodness for texts.
Renew and Restore
