Moving Forward - 20 February 2025

THURSDAY, February 20, Frederick Douglass

1 Timothy 4:12a Let no one despise your youth.

As an older priest, I’ve had the joy of watching many of my young ones in the church grow up. Some have become clergy themselves. Some have gotten married and had babies whom I get to baptize. Some have done all of the above!

These and other young people keep coming back to the church for the sacraments and holy community, and occasionally, in times of great sorrow, they return to mourn a friend lost to death.

When I keep my eyes on the truth of cultural studies and surveys, the ones that speak of the demographic cliff of a population dip and the shrinking of church institutions, I find it easy to fall into the trap of the generational wars: “This is what’s wrong with young people today...” I don’t believe anything is “wrong” with young people today that wasn’t “wrong” with our generation when we were younger. Living in new ways in a changed world happens with each generation, and God is there—with the young ones and the elders—for all of it.

MOVING FORWARD: O Lord, in the rush for the church to meet the challenge of the future, let me not dismiss the future that is already here.

PRAY for the Diocese of Maciene (Igreja Anglicana de Mocambique e Angola)

Ps 105:1-22 * 105:23-45 | Isaiah 65:1-12 |1 Timothy 4:1-16 | Mark 12:13-27

(Source: Forward Day By Day Movement)