Young people are the future of the church... Grrrr

Time for another bit of youthwork writing…
This is the talk some of the young people will be delivering at church tomorrow morning. Ok, so I wrote it, but we’re trying to get the church to take note of all the capable young people and the life they offer to the church as a whole. Young people aren’t the future of the church, they’re the now as well. I’ll let you know how it goes after the weekend!


In a minute we are going to watch a clip from the cartoon series, The Simpson’s. In this episode Homer, the father of the family, is staying at home while his family are stuck in a cold church. The reasons he stays at home are varied and manifold, but boil down to the fact that its cold outside, he thinks church is boring and his trousers are split…

Video clip from Homer the Heretic, Simpsons series 4, 05:50-08:12mins

In this clip Homer ends up staying at home, and not going to church with his family on a Sunday. The weathers cold, his trousers are too tight, and he would much rather stay in and enjoy himself. It might seem a little controversial to say this in church, but I reckon there probably cant be many people here this morning who have never felt like doing what Homer does…
Maybe on a beautiful sunny day going too church is not too bad, when we’re filled with the joy of spring or summer, and the birds are singing sweetly in the trees, but when its cold and rainy and miserable outside (a little like today maybe!) staying in seems like the better option.

Homer though is of course wrong in this clip. Going to church isn’t about simply doing something to keep God happy once a week. We are not here this morning as part of an unpleasant duty that we MUST do to appease God. True some of us may have some slightly different motivations for being here, some may be here out of a sense of duty, some may be here to accompany a friend or family member – none of these options is a particularly bad thing. A sense of duty is definitely not a bad thing, and coming to accompany someone who otherwise would maybe not come demonstrates great love and affection.
But perhaps the ultimate reason we gather together every Sunday is a point that Homer seems to miss. Namely that we come together to worship God, and to give him praise for what he has done, and continues to do for us. We come to church because God deserves our love and worship, and one of the best ways we can express that is to get together with other people who think the same and do just that.

And it doesn’t matter how old or young you are, what your background or tradition is, we are all part of Gods church. The Sunday school are going to show us some pictures they’ve made later in the service – and this is worship to God. Every week they learn about God, and making these pictures is just one way of expressing that. During communion the young people in the choir are going to sing a Russian children’s prayer, and that is part of our worship too.

The reason that parts of the service this morning is being taken by young people from various groups linked to the church or parish is to make a point – to celebrate that we are all part of Gods church, old and young, lively and less lively, hairy or balding. We are part of the church, not just St Peters and All saints, not just a Berkhamsted church, not just a British church, not just a protestant church, but part of Gods church, which extends across languages, cultures and continents.
We want to celebrate the diversity and life that we have in the church, the life we see here in front of us this morning, the life we experience in all the different ways in which the church reaches out to the people of this town, whether its through the wonderful musical tradition we have here, or through the work with the young people, or maybe the Sunday together lunches, or through the bell ringers, or through the mothers union or the toddlers group, old and young, lively or sedentary, it all is part of our life that we are celebrating this morning.

Christians across this town may express our faith in different ways, but we are all unified by our shared faith in Jesus and what God the father has done for us through him.
Different groups within the church may demonstrate our faith in different ways, but we are all unified by our shared faith in Jesus and what God the father did through him.

Homer may not have understood what church is about, maybe many of the people around us in our jobs, at our schools, our neighbours, do not understand what church is about. But if we continue to demonstrate it, in the way that we are doing here today, with so many different parts of the church involved, then we will surely be able to help them understand. In the end in the Simpson’s episode we saw Homer does begin to understand what church is about. And let us continue in our service this morning reflecting on what our shared faith is, and giving thanks for the many and varied ways that faith is worked out in our community here.