YOUTH GATHERING UPDATE
We are close to completing our getting ready materials as we have focused on BRAVE, AUTHENTIC, FREE and now – DISRUPTIVE.
We were introduced to Ruby Bridges and her family who fought for civil rights in New Orleans. We explored moving from being mad, sad and overwhelmed by what goes on in this world to understanding that justice work is part of our baptismal call, following the example of Jesus. Prayer and action are a part of who we are created to be.
New Orleans has a history of disrupters. The city builds community through diversity. Through people such as Ruby Bridges, its history challenges us to reject the things that separate us. On Nov. 19, 1960, at age 6, Bridges became a civil rights leader by taking the first step toward desegregating William Frantz Elementary School.
The image above records the historic moment when she was escorted to school by federal marshals. The significant difference in height and stature between Bridges and her escorts captured the absurdity of the European-descent parents who withdrew their students from school and left Bridges all alone on that first day, six years after desegregation had been mandated in the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education.
Her parents answered a call by the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to challenge school segregation. This cost them — her grandparents were forced off the land they tilled as sharecroppers, and her father was fired from his job. But they stayed the course, and Ruby Bridges continues to call New Orleans home.
Gathering Connections
Like the church, the Gathering should be a place where we can practice living in a community that is growing, forgiving and infused with God’s grace. Far too often our communities choose comfort as their primary goal, thinking, “If we just keep everyone comfortable, everyone will be happy.” Centering on comfort keeps us from experiencing growth. At the Gathering we will experience disruption. Our normal routines will look different. Our normal thought patterns will be challenged. Our thoughts about who God is will be disrupted — and, we hope, expanded.
There is grace in each disruption. By God’s grace we were created to sit and wait in that uncomfortable space, trusting that God will stir something new — a new relationship, new imagination, new hopes, etc.
As disciples of Jesus, we know that disruptions don’t end there. They are an invitation from the Holy Spirit to be part of God’s creative, redeeming, disruptive work in our world. When we witness injustice, we are invited to disrupt, challenge and embody change. Beloveds of God, the world is waiting for us to move beyond our comfort to disrupt injustice. We were created to be disruptive.
