Church Challenge: Richer Relationships
Our youth and children’s ministry are built around the assumption from yesterday’s theme—inter-generational community. We hope that every child and teenager will have at least five adults who they know, value, and mentor them in life and faith, beyond their family. We try to integrate our youth and children into our worship and mission.
But today’s lesson is harder to build into our common life. In our text, the Spirit inspires the gathered community, drawn from many nations, to praise God. Residents from 15 different locations, each heard the thanksgiving in their own native languages. This “miracle of hearing” is a reversal of the Tower of Babel incident (Genesis 11:9), when human differences of culture and language are a barrier to connection and understanding. Difference of culture and geography and nationality and language are beautiful and difficult aspects of our life together, within and beyond the USA. Part of the church’s unique identity and task is to connect across and beyond these differences.
Do you have friends whose primary language is not English?
Can you hear the truth they speak and faith they express?
Thank God for those in our church from other lands and for our connections in mission to other places and cultures.
April 20, 2024
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April 18, 2024