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Connection
FEATURE (cont’d)
Coming Down the Other Side of CY2018
4 FALL 2018
PRESBYTERIAN
presbyterian.ca
By the Rev. Dr. Blair D. Bertrand. Blair missed his first Canada Youth this year because he is currently
doing youth ministry in Malawi. His favourite leadership role at CY was being an usher in 2000. Well, that and doing liturgical dance. Since then he has written small group curriculums, been the keynote Youth Ministry Track speaker, was a Dean and served on a couple of planning teams.
I’ve been to the top of mountains and it is true, there is nothing quite like summiting. Getting up has not been easy. You’ve had to contend with mountain weather, which can move from stormy to sunny in mo- ments. The climb puts strain on your body, even more depending on how much baggage you carry. Sometimes the relationships you thought would carry you let you down, and people you didn’t expect to count on come through for you. But, when you get to the top, all of this makes the experience that much richer.
People are often surprised that coming down is as hard, maybe even harder, than going up. The weather continues to be unpredict- able. On the way up, your muscles take the strain; on the way down, your feet and knees are pounded with each step. Relationships begin to change as people anticipate get- ting to their cars and heading back to their “real” life. The danger and pain and change you experience on the way down can cast a shadow back onto that summit mountain- top experience you just had.
An experience like Canada Youth 2018 can be like summiting the mountain. Perhaps there has been a part of the experience that is re- markable, giving you a new view into God, yourself or others. Many
find worshipping God with passion contrasts significantly with their congregational experience. Others find really good friends who are their age, something that they struggle to find back home. Just getting to CY can be an eye-opening experience for some who have not travelled in Canada very much.
Now that it is over, you’ve been to the top, here is some advice for coming down:
1. Embrace the experience. There is a tendency for those who have not been to the top of the mountain to make it sound like it wasn’t as impor tant as you might think. Older and “wiser” people will warn younger people that the expe- rience will not last, that it is simply a flash in the pan and therefore you shouldn’t value it. Frankly, this ad- vice usually has more to do with the older person than with your experi- ence. For whatever reason, and I can think of about half a dozen ra- tional ones from wanting to protect you from disappointment to not ex- periencing God at work in their lives, these older folks confuse your expe- rience with what they experience at this point in their lives.
Whenever I’m tempted to give bad advice to a young person I remem- ber myself at 16. I went to a Chris- tian camp and fell in love twice. The first was with Jesus, a relationship that still drives my entire life. The second was with my future wife, a marriage that is going on 24 years. At 16, a mountain-top experience changed my life by giving me a real relationship with God and with my life partner. I’m not saying that each person at CY has that kind of experience but it is possible, and we should never take away from the power of it. Embrace the power of the experience.
2. Let the experience stay in the past. There is a real danger though that in embracing the experience we try to reproduce it in our everyday lives. Or that we stop embracing our everyday lives because we simply want to get back to the mountain top. In the first case we try to repli- cate the experience that we had and in the second we work to get back to something that we can never actu- ally return to.
Metaphorical mountain tops are important, at least for me. I found God and my wife there. But I can’t live my life with God or my now marriage on the mountain. I give thanks for the experience but also recognize its limits. It is a moment, a wonder ful one that can redefine life, but a life is more than a moment.
3. Bring down the truth. What can we do with a moment like CY? We can have our horizons expand- ed. When you look out off a moun- tain top the world looks much big- ger than it did at the bottom. Once I go down I can remember that. There is now a network of friends and re- lationships that were developed at these times. My world is a bit big- ger now. Equally important is that we can see God at work in much bigger ways than what we experi- ence at our local congregation or place. Maybe your faith in Christ became real at CY. That doesn’t go away when you return home; it changes but it does not disappear. When you come off the mountain, bring down with you the truth that you are connected to a much wider body of people and to a God greater than you’d imagined before.
Coming down can be hard. Sa- vour the views at the top; let the experience move you; live out the hard-won truths you discovered.
CY has certainly
impacted my faith
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by a very talented juggler/comedian. Each CY also has a talent show and a par ty to show off par ticipants’ talents and dance moves. CY has a dedicated themed day every year and this year it was based on food security and what that means. There were workshops through the afternoon for people to learn more about food security, and how we can use it to help our commu- nities. The themed days are another of my favourite parts of the program and makes CY different from other events. Spending a week at CY is a choice that I will always make because every experience is different from the last and each CY teaches me more about God and how the church and God can help us here at home, as well as those around the world.
CY is such an important event be-
cause it shows that there is a future for the church. It shows that there is still a generation of people that want faith to be a major part of their lives and want to meet others with similar thinking. Being from a small town in Alberta, it has been difficult at times to show my faith-side but at CY, I have no fear. Everyone chose to be there because they want to meet other people who also have no fear. This year was my first year in the Discipleship Track and at first I was a little skeptical about it, but one thing I learned is that we need to place faith first and make the rest of life fit around it. CY will continue to be a major part of my faith journey, and a major part in my making connec- tions with people throughout different levels in the church.