Friends,

I wanted to pass on something to you very exciting that we're doing with Truro's teenagers in The Upper Room that I know could have benefit for your ministry, should you choose to look through and adapt some of these materials.

I've long had a vision for more deeply engaging the teens at Truro with the Saturday night or Sunday services at Truro, and I think that one impediment to their engagement (this is true with adults, too) has been a lack of understanding the liturgical practices of Truro.

So this semester, in addition to equipping them for Bible study and doing memory verses each week, we are doing something I call "Liturgy Lab"--like when you take a science class in school and have an experiential "lab" component, we are taking various aspects of the Sunday a.m. liturgy and walking the students through them in detail.

Our hope is to better explain to them why we do what we do Sundays, so as to enrich that experience for them. This can be thought of as helping Youth understand Church more fully. Not only are we explaining our liturgy, we are delving into the history and deeper meaning behind it, as well as having Youth work on their own liturgies! You can see in the materials I'm linking you to, for example, some ideas Youth have about how to present and conclude Scripture readings at Truro. We will also have them write their own collects, according to the structure handed down to us by Cranmer and folks.

If you would like Word document versions of this so you can customize them for your own group or setting, please contact me to let me know. Further uploads coming on May 18, June 1, and June 8 to round out the series.

Peace,
Abram Kielsmeier-Jones
Director of Youth Ministry
Truro Church
www.trurochurch.org/awakenings

http://www.trurochurch.org/awakenings