Pilgrim youth at Urban Ministries

On Tuesday, as a part of our confirmation program this year our youth helped serve the meal at Urban Ministries. I was looking forward to sharing that experience with them, to show them the full circle of what happens from our Penny Sunday donations, to the Pilgrim team who buys the food and cooks the meal, to the serving itself.

I also was wary, that while service work is one of the most sacred things we can participate in as people of faith, it’s also a space where we can easily slip into “savior” mode, to see ourselves as above or better than those coming to receive a meal, those struggling with addiction, untreated mental health conditions, generational poverty or some combination thereof. And somehow I feel that this kind of superior thinking—is a way we can “study war” without even being aware of it.

So my prayer to the youth and for all of us— is to stay humble. To remember how sacred it is to get to participate on either side of giving and receiving. To remember that grace, not good fortune is our birthright. Tough times come, but in sharing grace as humbly as we can, we can touch the kindom. It’s not just the work we do for others, the but spirit in which we do it that matters.

Felix Flanders Dec 4, 2022