The first meeting of the St. Alban's 20's and 30's

Jimmy, the former assistant and leader/founder of St. Awesomes, once said “Very soon, everything will be unfamiliar. St. Alban’s will be different. During this transition, some will look on the church and will think of it as foreign.” Well I think it is safe to say we have arrived to that point where the experience of St. Alban’s is changing right before our very eyes. We are in the search process for a new rector, people who avidly attended church while Jeff and Jimmy were here no longer come and most of all Jeff and Jimmy, the “Christ like” figures in our church, the leaders and mentors in our walk of faith, are no longer with us.

I feel the situation we are in now reflects shades of what the disciples faced after Jesus died. Jesus’ disciples spent three years following Him.  They heard Him teach about God’s Kingdom and witnessed Him perform many miracles.  When they saw the Son of God nailed to a cross and die they may have experienced feelings of abandonment.  They believed Jesus was God’s Promised Messiah and now He was dead and His body had been placed in a sealed tomb. Feelings are not always the truth of what is really happening in a situation.  If the disciples had felt abandoned when Jesus died, it was not the truth.  Jesus told them very clearly before He was nailed to the cross that He was going to suffer and would rise again.  Even though the disciples had been told by Jesus what to expect they were most likely frightened and overwhelmed when the things that Jesus said would happen were taking place.  It would not have been easy to watch the innocent Son of God be treated like a criminal and be nailed to a Roman Cross. It was very traumatic and unsettling for Jesus’ disciples. Sometimes feelings of fear, sadness, or loneliness can cloud our hearts to the truth that Jesus has spoken to us from His Word.

The Bible is full of God’s instructions for His people to follow until He returns or calls them home. Jimmy gave us similar instruction before he left “I have told the 20s & 30s many times that while they are here in Waco, they are to utterly throw themselves into the ministry and community of St. Alban’s. And when they leave, we will be sad, not because they’re leaving the fellowship of the Church, but because they are moving on.” He was right that we are a nomadic group of individuals. Some of us will be moving on sooner than we might like but while we are together, let us be together.

During one of Jimmy’s sermons, he said that, “There is no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian. In order to be in communion, in fellowship with God, you must first be in a community with other Christians. There is simply no way to have a communion, a fellowship, by yourself. We need the Church, we need one another in order to know God.” Similarly Jeff said to us before he left that one of the best qualities of St. Alban's is that that we are lay led and that is where I think we need to step in. We as a lay group need to do our part to grow and further the fellowship of the church, much like the disciples did after Christ died.

With our fearless leaders having moved on to new and exciting things, we are indeed fulfilling Jeff’s description of St. Alban’s as a lay-led Christian community. The children have their Godly Play group, and the parents come together with that; the old men have their 6 am breakfasts; the old women have the St. Alban’s/St. Catherine’s Guild. These are all lay-led. And in an effort to have an avenue of fellowship for the rest of us who may not fall into one of these categories, St. Awesome’s 20’s and 30’s and Young at Heart, ought to be led by every member who feels like they may have something to contribute.