Welcome!

Welcome welcome welcome to the GYC blog! This is a little corner of the web where we can stop and think about our journey together as Grace Youth in Community. I'll use this first blog entry to reflect on a couple of things: the name of the group, and the bible passage I've chosen as our kind of "byline" (it's under the blog's title, in case you hadn't seen it yet!)



Our name. This is a new name for the Grace youth group, and it doesn't come randomly or without intention. Many youth groups throughout the Episcopal Church are known as "EYC," or Episcopal Youth [in] Community (the "in" is sometimes left out). Where I come from, we were known as DYC- Diocesan Youth in Community. EYC seemed a little too generic, and DYC wouldn't make sense because this is our local church youth group. SO...GYC for Grace Youth in Community.

Not only is this a handy short name for the group, but it also says something about who we are and what we are trying to do. We are from Grace. We are youth. And we are in community--in fact, we could change the last word to communities! Each of us is involved in many different communities-family, school, clubs, teams, towns, and in our case the Church. One of the great things about Church, though, is that it can encompass all of these communities--our identity as Christians, as people who believe in and follow Jesus, is an integral part of who we are, and changes the way we interact with everyone. Knowing that the person across from you in lab is also a child of God can make a big impact on how you approach this person. So we are in community with one another, and in the case of this youth group we will wrestle with what it means to be "in community" as a community! No one has to go it alone.


Our byline. Just in case you missed it or forgot it, I'll copy it here:
"My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves." -1 John 3:18-20 (The Message)

You might notice at first that this doesn't sound like your typical Bible language. That's because it's not. This passage is from The Message, which is a modern day paraphrase (meaning it's not an exact translation) of the Bible. It presents God's Word to us in a new way. The Message is what we'll be using in GYC for studying scripture. I hope y'all come to experience God's Message in a new and dynamic way with it.

Why is this passage the one chosen for a description of our group? As I mentioned above, what we're learning in GYC is what it means to be a Christian in community. Community is something with which the author of 1 John was inherently concerned.

When you read the entire book of 1 John (don't worry, it's only about 5 chapters long!), you'll find community concerns throughout the work. It seems that a group in this early church had broken away and deeply wounded the remaining members. There are some hard words said against those who left. Specifically, the splinter group was denying the humanity of Jesus; this was not cool with the rest of the church, thus the unhappy division. That said, if there's two words you take away from this little explanation, they should be community and Jesus.

So what does this have to do with our youth group, you might ask? And furthermore, how does this relate to that passage you just quoted? Good questions. On first read, the passage seems to be about love (which is no small thing!). But what about love? Well, on the one hand love is something that is done in relationship: God loves me, I love my parents, my parents love their kids, I love my friends...you get the picture. While I guess you could say it, "I love" just sounds rather strange-like you're practicing verbs or something. When we say "I love you" or "I love Jesus"--that's when love happens. When we love others. When we love in community.

The author of 1 John is stressing just this: "My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality." We can only be a part of God's reality when we love one another--we can't just talk about it (or write about it in a blog, for that matter!). And, as I explained above, this loving happens in a relationships, in community. Furthermore, how do we learn to love?

One of the big issues for the early church was this Jesus guy. Who was he exactly? Was he just a really spectacular human being? Was he completely divine and only appeared to be human? Or, as would become the official position, was he both completely human and completely divine? Some in the Johannine community (this is what we call the communities described in John's Gospel and in the books 1,2, and 3 John in the New Testament) claimed Jesus was only divine and they left the group. It's interesting to notice the emphasis on God's reality in this passage. We know we live truly when we love, that's when we live in God's reality. Truly. Reality. Clearly the author had a point to get across, and he wanted to make sure no one thought for a minute that Jesus was in no way human. He was human. He lived and loved in a human community, as we learn from the Gospels.

Last, but definitely not least, is the little bit at the end of the passage. "It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. " It would be easy to feel like real community is impossible when our example is none other than the Son of God, but the author of 1 John assures us that loving truly also means loving ourselves--faults and all! He makes it a point to say that our self-criticism often carries some truth, but the fact of the matter is that God loves us ANYWAY. How awesome is that? I may have a tendency to procrastinate, or talk too much (and these aren't examples--these are actual self-criticisms!) but God knows me better than I know myself and God loves me. It is this very love from God that allows me to open myself up to loving others.

Pretty awesome, if you ask me.