Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

The sun slid down the mountains, and the game was on.   

Cornhole, a very Midwestern pastime, kicked into high gear. A father and son played on one team, a high school freshman and a thirty-something on the other. The cheer team packed the picnic tables.   

One of the boys was only seven—and perhaps playing his first game of cornhole with adults. The bags fell short, throw after throw. Another adult, not related to the boy, stepped up and showed him how to throw. Take a long step, swing your arm, release. The boy practiced a few times.   

On his next turn, he launched the bean bag. It slid onto the painted board and then through the hole. Score.   

The cheer team erupted. A smile snuck into the corners of the boy’s mouth, but he remained stoic. He was playing with the big boys, and he wanted to act like one.   

Our parish gathered for its annual retreat last weekend. Two nights and three days in the mountains. Away from cell phones and video games. No opportunities for snapchats and tweets. And in the midst of the retreat was this moment, where an adult took time to kneel on one knee, to come eye to eye with a child, and let him know he cared.   

Later in the evening, a young girl stood by a grandmother—not her grandmother, but an elder in our congregation—and taught the older woman a line dance. At the end, they both threw back their heads and laughed. The years between closed.   

This is what it means to be in community. To spend time with one another. To know each other. To play. To laugh. To pray. To walk and hike and swim and to share a common table, over dinner and over the Lord’s Supper. 

This is the first parish I’ve attended that has a congregation-wide retreat. I pray more will try the experience, to allow this time of refreshment and rejuvenation to infuse new energy and renewed commitment to living in community as the Body of Christ. 

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