Kitchener Church Retreat

Wow. What a weekend. The Church of the Good Shepherd February 8 - 10 weekend retreat was so much fun and so full of adventure and excitement. We began Friday night, with travelers from Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and me, from Maine, descending on Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Three vehicles filled with Swedenborgian teens all coming together to create a worship experience with youth members from the Church of the Good Shepherd. All of the out of town travelers arrived late Friday night, weary from the long trip. After greeting our friends in Kitchener/Waterloo and taking a quick tour of the church, we blew up the mattresses and settled into our bags for the night. We woke Saturday morning to the wonderful smell of Lorraine's fresh coffee. After a quick breakfast we started in on the worship service planning. We had 24 hours to pull together a Sunday worship service for the Church of the Good Shepherd congregation pretty much starting from scratch. We did have a topic to work with. The stewardship month theme was "Becoming the gift you are". We spent the morning brainstorming ideas and decided our service would involve a series of contemporary skits about temptation adapted from associated Bible stories (The Forbidden Fruit, Satan's Temptation of Jesus, Satan's Test of Job, etc) . We also decided that we would perform the entire service in reverse order, from the Postlude to the Prelude, including a "welcome Benediction", "closing Invocation" along with opening the Word and lighting the candles at the end of the service. All of this "reverse order worship" done to reflect the concept that the real service (a useful charitable life) starts after Sunday worship has ended. We even got the congregation involved by having them color pictures to a reading from Revelation. After much planning, preparation and rehersing, we were finally ready to deliver the service. The teens did a great job and the entire worship experience was heartfelt, playful and inspiring. Everyone worked very hard on the service and I am very proud of all of the youth for their attention, care and understanding. I'm also glad we got a chance to play some games, including a round of Sardines late Saturday night. More about the Sardines games later. All of the people from the States (12 teens and 4 adults) left Kitchener early Sunday afternoon to return home. That's when the story really gets interesting...to be continued...