Advent Word - December 14 - #gather

The "Advent Word" practice is a daily meditation on a given word and an opportunity to share that reflection on social media with others who are keeping this practice. It's akin to an Advent calendar, but with many boxes to open on a given day. Sometimes the reflections are sincere, and sometimes they're a little silly, but at the end of the day, it's a practice set aside to help us observe the season of Advent in the midst of the world's busyness. With all of that in mind, this is going to be my attempt to observe the Advent Word practice. I wish I could promise a reflection every day, and we'll see where this goes together.

For the first time we invited our confirmation mentors and their spouses or significant others over for a thank you dinner, of sorts. My wife has wanted to do this for them for a while, but I haven't been able to get my act together to extend the invitation and find date for it. It's one of those times of year that it's impossible to get everyone together, and I was glad we were able to gather as many people as we could. My wife worked most of the day to get a good, hearty meal for us, and she made some incredible sweet treats for dessert. We all got to eat, the kids made lots of noise, and it was a good night.

I take a lot of pride in my confirmation mentors (see how I claim them as my own?), but it's not because of anything I do with them. I ask them to give up their Sunday afternoons for three months in the fall, and they come and hang out with sixth graders for up to an hour and a half. They help them navigate through Bible study and church history, and they build relationships with the kids that I hope will continue to grow as they all continue at our church.

What I'm especially grateful for, though, is watching them grow in relationship with each other. Some of them have a passing familiarity with each other through other things at church and around town, but nothing brings people together like the shared experience of an overnight lock-in with middle schoolers. And because we get to work so closely together, I learn a lot from them, too. They see some things I don't see, and they help to make the class better over time. It's not a small effort for them to undertake, and I hope they understand and appreciate how important their work is. And as a priest, I hope I can remember the importance and necessity of showing gratitude to our lay people for their ministries as I continue in my time in the Church, too.