In the spring of 2003 I had been in my role as Faith Church’s Youth/Associate Pastor for less than 12 months when a nearby sister church approached us with an idea: could we combine youth groups?
They were renting space at a local school, and not only did they not have easy access to additional hours and usage of the space for youth group meetings, but they also couldn’t afford to hire a youth pastor. Some of that church’s families with teens were unsettled by their lack of focus on youth ministry, and thus their church leaders were concerned. Given my congregation’s geographical proximity to their focus area, given our space, and given the fact that I was already on board as Faith Church’s youth pastor, they thought a merger just might solve their needs.
Further, they wondered if this combination, which would double the size of both groups, might be a boost for all involved. To top it off, they offered to pay part of my salary and subsidize costs for their students at the same rate my church was subsidizing costs for all our students. The leaders of our sister church saw it as a win-win, as did we, and that summer I feverishly began planning to launch the newly combined group. I was excited to embark on a journey of togetherness, but the groups were separate. As a very inexperienced youth pastor, how would I help two distinct groups of teenagers come together?
I knew it would take time to build meaningful relationships, but I thought it might help to start with a symbolic act. Rituals are symbolic acts that help us imagine and build new worlds. I wanted the two youth groups to imagine becoming one group.
Our sister church paid to rent the gymnasium of the school where they met for worship, so we decided to have a sports-themed kick-off event. Most of the rest of the regular meetings and events were going to take place at Faith Church, so we thought it appropriate for Faith Church’s group to make a sacrificial overture by holding the first event on our sister church’s home turf. That evening, after some “ice-breaker” games and sports, the groups ate pizza on the bleachers in the gym of the school. I say “groups” because there were two very visible groups on those bleachers. The youth of each church had sorted themselves apart from one another.
My plan for the night was to have a devotional talk about unity, and it seemed that the evening was starting with disunity. I was disappointed that none of the students from either church were sacrificially reaching out to one another. I can hardly blame them, because I have observed the same tendency with a variety of age groups. Most people stick with their friends, with the familiar, whether children or adults.
But I was ready. I had come prepared with my symbolic gesture. I cued up the Beatles’ song, “Come Together,” and I gave the following instructions: as the song played, I wanted them to physically move their bodies and sit next to someone from the other church. I hit the play button, and as the Beatles crooned the chorus, “Come together, right now, over me,” nothing happened.
Instead, the looks on the teenagers’ faces were filled with fear and loathing. Years later, they were the same looks I saw on the faces of adults when, as senior pastor, I instructed the people in a worship service to get up and sit in a different pew, so as to meet new people. In the gym, at my further coaxing, the students begrudgingly rose from their places on the bleachers and came together. They were now physically together, but at the same time they were far from truly together.
To bring it home in a personal way, my wife will often say to me that though I am physically present with her as I sit next to her on the sofa in the evening, I am not always present with her in a way that she desires. The two of us have gathered, as we are in very close physical proximity, but my wife is dissatisfied with the quality of our togetherness. That might have something to do with the fact that I often fall asleep while sitting there. My snoring doesn’t help either. The same goes for when I am sitting next to her, but I am engrossed in playing a game on my phone. I am physically present, together with her, but as she would say, “I am not really present.” What real presence does she desire?
Simply put, we humans can gather in the same proximity, but we might not be together in a meaningful way. What, then, should “togetherness” be? Better yet, let me ask another question that I believe will help us discover what togetherness should be: “What kind of togetherness does God desire?”
Engaging Scripture 