Commissioning Not Capstone - Footsteps of Faith

By -
I just returned home from a ten day adventure with a group of recent high school graduates. This experience is part of a program we call Footsteps of Faith. The young people who participate each year meet every week from September through the beginning of April. Along the way, they explore faith and scripture on a deeper level, investigate vocation (calling), and are sent by the church toward and into what is next with a blessing to be a blessing. The experience ends with the group traveling together following the footsteps of the Apostle Paul. This was the fifteenth year for this program. It has not only transformed the lives of the young people and adult leaders who have participated, but it has also changed the church in ways we could have never imagined or anticipated. 

As we were returning home yesterday, I asked the students to reflect on their experience in a word or phrase. Here is what they said...
Unforgettable 
Blessed
Petrichor - the smell and feeling after it rains. The nice feeling that something beautiful is about to come.
Spiritual calling
Life changing
Timeless
Impactful 
Community 
Answers many questions - it connects us better to the people and our faith but also brings questions to mind. 
Unreal 
Thought provoking
An amazing trip filled with many new friends. 
This trip is like a puzzle: The pieces are constantly being put into place, but you can't fully appreciate how powerful it is, until it is complete.
The fire of my faith has been re-lit. 
Celestial
Enlightening 
Eye opening 
Experience that connected so many aspects of my faith into one. 
Incredible experience
Prepared to take on what's next. 

These words bear witness to the past as well as the potential of Footsteps of Faith. It has been and continues to be a commissioning and not a capstone experience for those who participate. This year the experience has left me wondering how in our search for meaningful, memorable, and transformative opportunities for our young people (as well as others in our communities) we might imagine more ways to commission them toward and into what is next. 

 The beautiful thing about a commissioning is that it acknowledges that the experience, the present, is only a small part of a much bigger story which extends out into an unknown future and sends people into it with a blessing. These experiences can serve as a point that connects that which was, that which is, and that which is yet to be. A commissioning is a sacred trust of sorts. It can signal that even though we do not know what may be around the next bend, but we trust one another and the God who guides us as we walk into that unknown. 

 By contrast, a capstone experience has the potential to send a different message. A capstone experience may mark that the experience is over and done with and can serve to over romanticize the past. A capstone is an end. Nothing can be added after it. 

 A commissioning is a beginning. Everything is yet to come.  

In a faith where we claim God to be the God of what was, what is, and what is yet to come, perhaps we need to use divine imagination to think of ways in which we can provide experiences that connect people with one another and the mystery that is their life. What do you imagine?

 I am thankful for this program, for the participants, and for what we have yet to learn about how to make it even more meaningful. 

Looking ahead to what is yet to be...




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Persistence is her name (a poem)

By -
Persistence "firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition." Persistence is her name. She stands when it would be more convenient to sit. She sits when others wish she would move. She moves when action is demanded. She speaks because her voice shall not be silenced nor stolen yet again. Persistence is her name. She has birthed nations. She has ended wars. She has toppled empires. She has nursed change. Persistence is her name. Mercy is found in the milk of her breast. Empathy is seen in the tears on her cheek. Justice is felt in the sweat of her brow. Righteousness is coursing in the blood in her veins. Persistence is her name. Difficulty will not stop her. Obstacles will not stand. Opposition will not cause delay. Trouble will not linger. Persistence is her name. Nevertheless, she persisted; for Persistence IS her name. — bshivers
Read more

Lent: Walk - John 5:1-18

By -
Image
JOHN 5:1–18 1 After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many invalids — blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” 12 They a
Read more

Actively Giving Thanks

By -
Image
Land acknowledgement: I live on the ancestral lands of the Kickapoo and the Miami. They were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands. This Thanksgiving, I have found myself thinking about what it means for thanksgiving to be an active exercise instead of something akin to a passive counting of blessings.  What if my thanksgiving were not just a self serving activity?   What if my giving thanks actually led me to something more than keeping a tally of the ways in which I have been #blessed throughout the year? What if it was more than a naming of the results of my privilege and advantage? What if it was more than a list of the same old things that I know I should be thankful for but often take for granted because I can? What would happen if my thanksgiving actually spurred me to action? What would that look like? Perhaps an active thanksgiving would result in a process of discovery of who/what is on my list, of who/what isn't on my list, of who/what is ignored, of who/what I hav
Read more