City Sights/City Lights 2008

"Those who say, ' I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also." 1 John 4.20,21

Being in communion with God is when we as God's people begin to love God. For it is a God we have not seen that tells us when we begin to love one another, then He will live within us, we can bring God's love to one another. Everyone is created in the imago dei, the image of God. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his site, we are all beloved children of God. We are called to love one another despite what makes us different. If anything, we should love one another more because of the differences. Imago Dei, the image of God, love. How can one love if they do not know the God of love?

Taking on the imago dei, today is liking being a fish swimming against the current. To go against the grain. To be different. Living into the image of God is for us to love each other, those we know and those we don't know . Not by seeing how many cool Christian t-shirts we can wear or by how many Christian songs we can remember no, God, through Christ, redeemed the world and sent Christ to bring a new humanity. To bring heaven on earth. We have a choice, to either embrace the imago dei, or to turn away from it and do the opposite, hate.

Our junior high students in the Western Kentucky Presbytery will have the opportunity to bring the love of Christ to local organizations in Owensboro. Next Monday evening beginning at 6 pm through Wednesday ending at 10 am, they will be in community with each other through the breaking of bread, through the reading of the great story, through working with each other and the redemptive grace the waters bring and around a common table, the youth will begin to take the light of Christ into a hurting world.

We ask that you pray for us Tuesday as we will leave at 8:45 am to go and do work at the HL Neblett Community Center here in Owensboro. Pray that our hearts may be tender, our eyes be soft and our attitudes reflect that of Christ. After we serve here, we will then take canned goods to the H.E.L.P. Office to stock their shelves and to learn more about poverty in Owensboro. After that, we will celebrate the day through story telling and breaking of bread around the table together. Then it will be time for a little R&R and swimming. On Wednesday we will wake up and begin the day the best way possible, with prayer and the Eucharist, followed by dinner and a departure.

Throughout our time together if you have not already picked up, the theme behind City Sights/City Lights 2008 is Love. Being influenced by pastor/theologian Rob Bell's Sex God, our liturgy will guide our liturgical movements providing a contemplative atmosphere for our youth and adults to pray about, contemplate and eventually, live out a life of love. So come and join us on this adventure, relearning what it means to love, relearning what it means to serve and relearning what it means to be a Child of God. If you can't make it, pray for us and take sometime to allow your lives to be shaped by the words of Christ.

May it be that both you and I, the youth and the chaperone's will come to encounter the holy and may it be that our hearts may too grow strangely warm in the presence of Christ.

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." Mother Teresa