Be Still

This is a short paper I wrote for my Speech class, using the "20 Principles of Good Writing." Although I've blogged about this experience before, I decided to post it again with a postscript. Last week Beth was speaking to a girl in the group who was with us on the trip and she said to Beth "I knew that Jesus died for me, but I think that night in Mississippi was the first time that I've ever given my life to Christ." Thanks be to God for God's work among us!!

This summer I had an experience that altered my understanding of ministry forever. After a hard week of work on the Gulf Coast, I gathered with a group of high school students on the beach for an evening of worship and Communion. In the days leading up to our service, I thought about what I might say to my students to help bring closure to our week, yet as I prayed, I felt led to prepare nothing. As we walked down to the beach, I continued to ask God for words and wisdom, yet I heard God saying “Be still and know that I AM God. I will be exalted.”
As we arrived at the beach I encouraged the students to take a moment and see the stars and dangle their feet into the water. Dusk was fading into darkness and we admired the brilliant colors of the sunset. I listened to the students talk and laugh, continuing to deepen the relationships that they had begun to develop throughout the week.
After a few minutes I brought the students together and asked a “How have you seen God this week?” As we sat on a deserted, devastated beach in Mississippi, students began to name the ways they had seen God move. They spoke of how they had seen God through others, how they had seen God in the middle of utter destruction. They spoke of seeing God in work and play. The more we talked together, the more we realized that God had been changing us and shaping us into people with hearts for others. We had seen Jesus in the faces of those we had served all week long.
Together, we began to sing. As the music faded, I read from I Corinthians 11 and invited the students to meet God in the sacrament. I gave students space to take time with God before coming to receive communion, and I expected that students might wait a minute or two before stepping forward. I stood amazed as I watched all of my students spread out across the beach, falling on their knees before the Almighty King. The Holy Spirit reigned down on my students and they were overwhelmed by the presence of God that was at work in their lives. As they began to come they did so with tears in their eyes. As I offered them the bread and juice, I realized something powerful that has left me changed. The work of God has nothing to do with me. The amount of time I spend in preparation or the words that I so carefully craft cannot even compare with a moment in which God moves. My role as a minister of the Gospel is not to force people to encounter God; rather my role is to create a space in which God is allowed to speak. My life and the lives of my students have not been the same since.