What brought you here today?
Andrew Stephens-Rennie
May 12, 2015
It’s one of the first questions on our minds when someone dares to walk through the front doors of our church for the first time.
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It’s one of the first questions on our minds when someone dares to walk through the front doors of our church for the first time.
To this day I can still picture myself climbing the stairs of Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall toward the balcony. It was in the highest heights of that concert hall that I encountered The Messiah for the first time. By the time I was seven or eight years old, it had become family tradition to yearly immerse ourselves in George Frideric Handel’s masterpiece.
If there is to be hope for the future, our faith-filled response will be hard-fought and costly. It will require those with power to cast it aside.
This was an exciting summer for my family. There was the restful time away on a quiet island, visits with family and outdoor meals with friends. Among the highlights of these summer months, one stands out: the July 15 groundbreaking ceremony for our new home.
About 600 Anglican and Lutheran youth from across the country gathered in Kamloops, B.C. August 14 to 17 for the third bi-annual Canadian Lutheran Anglican Youth Gathering (CLAY).
The other day, as I sat in the barber’s chair, I couldn’t help thinking how wonderfully strange it was. There I was, sitting in this shop surrounded by machismo and boasting, listening to testosterone-fuelled music, and all the while engaged in a deep conversation with my barber about Jesus.
Music was a deeply formative part of my adolescence. Along with Biblereading and daily prayer, my Christian music collection was incrediblymeaningful to me. Audio Adrenaline, Amy Grant, DC Talk, Michael W.Smith, Petra and White Cross were just some of the bands in mycollection.
I left home in 1999. Having packed what I needed in the back of myparents’ Toyota Camry, we drove the three and a half hours fromCambridge to Kingston, Ont., where I would spend the next four years.
Phil Robertson’s reality TV show Duck Dynasty changed my life-eventhough I’ve never seen the show, am only vaguely aware of its contentand know nothing about its characters. I can’t tell you when it’s on, oreven on what channel. And yet, for some reason, in late December theshow presented me with an incredible opportunity for discussion…
Some years ago, my grandmother, Dorothea Rennie, passed away in February. In the previous six months, she’d rallied and failed so many times that it was hard to know what to do, or how to prepare.
After graduating from seminary, I served as the mission and outreach co-ordinator for a small Presbyterian congregation in Toronto.
We spent the whole month of October in Valencia, birthplace of paella, on the southern coast of Spain. Half the day I’d usually go exploring with my family. We’d jump on buses or take long walks through the ancient walled city, investigating its history, architecture, food and culture.
Each night before putting our son to bed, we read a few stories from our children’s Bible. There are stories of Adam and Eve, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of Deborah and Ruth, of Jesus, Mary, Martha and the other disciples.
Before the inevitable autumn crunch my family escaped to one of the Pacific Gulf Islands for a short holiday.
In summer 2002, I took a communications job at the north end of Toronto. Daily, I encountered scores of World Youth Day pilgrims and found myself regularly giving directions to Downsview Park, where the event was held.
I was in the parish parking lot, closing the trunk of my car, about to head into the church. Suddenly a voice rang crystal-clear: “You can’t park here.”
It was a clear, crisp winter’s day when our six-day-old son wasmarked with ashes. That Wednesday in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, wewere reminded that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Thesewords, in combination with Old Testament prophet Joel’s prophecy and thedark palm char on rosy newborn skin, left an indelible mark on myheart.
I was a recovering evangelical. I grew up in a denominational context where answers were black or white, right or wrong. There was little room for doubt or questions. Trouble was, I had a lot of questions.
One day, several years ago, I walked into the office and a well-meaning colleague pointed me out to a guest, saying, “Hey, there’s the youth!”
When young people come back from events like the CLAY (Canadian Lutheran Anglican Youth) gathering, or a summer at camp, we often hear the question, “Why can’t church be more like camp?” Instinctively, we get our backs up—even though we’ve experienced the ways in which summer camp has helped young people (and many of us!) to grow in faith. What does camp have that we don’t?
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