Joining in the "Our Father"

This past weekend I was responsible for thirty-three of the 12,000 teens and chaperones at Winterfest in Gatlinburg, TN. Let me start by saying that it was a wonderful weekend. I was able to reconnect with a lot of people from around the country that I have not seen for quite some time. I wish that I had the time to write down my thoughts on all of the little seemingly meaningless events and the powerful teaching moments, but time would fail me. Over the next couple of days I might try to shed a little light on some of those, but for now I have to share the story of the “Our Father…”

As often happens on youth group trips, we had some visitors with us. These were not just tagalongs who struggle to find a group of their own, but friends from our teens’ schools or former church homes. Robert was one of these friends. Robert was just an eighth grader, a fairly small kid with stringy light brown hair modeled after the Beatles and a brown jacket that he rarely left his shoulders. He wore glasses and was fairly quiet when he was around the group, so I did not expect to hear much out of him throughout the weekend.

On Saturday night about thirty-eight of us crammed into the front room of King Suite at the Clarion Inn for a time of singing, confession, praying, and the reading of Scripture. Things started out pretty much as can be expected. A teen and a chaperone ended up tag-team leading some songs. I made some comments after the first two, while some of the older kids sporadically jumped in after other songs to share some of the thoughts on their minds. We were shooting at least par for the course. Then, Robert chimed in and asked us about how we do things in the Churches of Christ. “I am Catholic and we do things pretty differently. I don’t know any of the songs you are singing. And you guys seem to just pray about whatever. Do you all have any written prayers that you say together? You know, like the ‘Our Father’ or the ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Help’?” Knowing who was in the room, I had to repress my deeply seeded longings for engaging and meaningful liturgies. I mean, really, I should not have been born into a Free Church tradition. But that is another story… I quickly explained that in the Churches of Christ we really do not use those prayers. We tend to just pray about whatever is on our minds. Thankfully one of the other chaperones jumped in and said, “We pray to the same God though.”

Well, that all seemed to appease our little stringy haired friend. He sort of leaned back down. One of the teens jumped in and led another song and we were back on track. About fifteen minutes later one of the chaperones suggested that we wrap things up, but I know how these devos work. Everyone sits around thinking about all of the stuff that is on their minds wishing that they would jump in but unable to make the leap of faith to authentic self-disclosure, but then frustrated when the youth minister or a chaperone says, “Alright, let’s circle up for one more song and a prayer.” So, I make the plea to “all of you reserved types out there, and you know who you are, this is your chance. Chime in now, or forever hold your peace!”

All of the sudden, from just below my left shoulder I hear the voice of the mini-Beatle, “Do you think it would be alright if I lead us in the ‘Our Father’?” My eyes jumped down to Robert and then quickly scanned the room. I was thinking to myself, “Do our kids even know what the ‘Our Father’ is?” So, I tried to help them out with a simple context clue. I looked at Robert and said, “Sure, I think most of us know it. We usually call it the Lord’s Prayer.” So, he started, this soft spoken, stringy haired, glasses wearing Catholic visitor opened his mouth and uttered the words, “Our Father, who art in heaven…” I quickly chimed in to assure our kids that this was alright. I could hear the voices of our kids softly mumbling the words that they have read for years, but rarely used in worship. We made a leap that night. We not only were in fellowship with a Catholic brother, we were led by him. He helped us join together with all of those who would pray lift their voices together the next morning to pray the prayer that our Lord taught us. It was truly a sacramental moment, a moment of grace that broke into a little roomful of saints gathered together in the name of the Lord.