Body of Christ

This weekend I attended the Iowa District West Youth Gathering in Des Moines (http://www.idwyg.org/) with 4 wonderful youth that were only a smidge among 600 other high schoolers. My friend Aaron and I were chaperones…..good times! The theme for the event was the body of Christ. One of my favorite verses/ chapters is in 1 Corinthians 12. It talks about the body being of many parts and how all of those parts work together. To me it is saying that we might be a different body part. What do I mean when I say that. Well some of us have talents or abilities others don’t like talking, listening, running, drawing, singing, whatever it maybe just the same as the body having many parts that serve a purpose like the foot, leg, hand, neck….and so on. Just like those many parts make up one body so our many talents, abilities, personalities, jobs, or skills make up one body in Christ. Romans 12:4-5 “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not have the same function, so we through many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” In our small group devotions we invited the keynote speaker to join us in our devotion. His name is Pastor Tom Rogers. He is an amazing man with story after story that connected his life and struggles to his faith and growth in life. As a child Tom had polio and before coming to are gathering he had fallen at his perish and broke his hip. Already with bad legs and movement this created another struggle for him. He shared with us that he has always want to know what it feels like to run…..something as simple to the rest of us was a challenge to him. This was just one story of this mans life. As he sat with us one of the boys in my group said that he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about his faith with others. Tom looked him straight in the eyes and said you are an ear. “An Ear???” What does that mean look came over this youth’s face. An ear, some one who is a great listener, not a mouth…not some one who can easily spread the word, but a part of the body that is just as vital. What part of the body are you? Are you a foot, hand, the mouth, are you the spine? If you aren’t up for the health lesson maybe you can look at it in the eyes of the tree. Are you a leaf, the trunk, the branches? I said I wanted to be the roots…the youth didn’t seem to get it, but I’m one for soaking up information, creating a strong foundation for others to hold on to, roots are a vital part of the tree in my opinion without them the trunk, the largest part of the tree, would fall right over…the leaves wouldn’t get nutrients to grow…if they don’t grow they do…(I’ll stop…the cycle is never ending….until everything is dead) Being at this gathering reminded me of the national youth gathering just a few summers ago in Florida. Each group of 8 volunteers where given a doll to decorate in order for it to represent the group (look back at if you want to know what I’m talking about) Our mascot was one body with many parts, we all wrote on the guy our favorite verse and in the middle we wrote 1 Cor.12. To help us remember that we are all make up one body in Christ. How awesome is that news…we don’t have to go out into the world by ourselves. One of the sessions I went to was about witnessing to others and we had to think of a theme song for our life….something that describes you. The first thing that popped into my head wasn’t some Christian song or what not but… “I like to move it move it…I like to move it move it” WHY? Well when I was in grade school we use to practice different jumps and leaps in dancing, whenever this song came on it just made me feel like I want to fly across the floor. Dancing is what I love to do, flying is something I fear, and movement is what I should be doing in my faith. So that is my theme song I guess you could say. What is yours and Why?

I’m going to leave you with this. We all have so much to give to one another so many abilities to share. Join together and form one body. Why would you want to be alone anyway. If you were a foot you would be nothing with out a leg to go on. If you were a mouth you would be nothing without a voice.

I was hoping that this weekend would give me time to reflect on my life.....I'm still as lost as ever