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I first met Wyatt the first day of his life. One of my goals is to visit every newborn baby from a Chain of Lakes family in the hospital. When Wyatt was born Gina called me. I drove to the hospital on a cold, dark, January night. I remember listening to the Timberwolves game as I drove into the parking lot. It took me a while to navigate the hospital. Eventually I made it to the room where Gina and Wyatt were staying. Gina was very gracious to greet me. She had been up for 36 hours straight and had visitors in the room for most of the day. Here I was another visitor. She was kind. Sitting right next to Gina was Wyatt. Wow! You know how cool it is to see a baby on the first day of life. If you dont believe in God, just look at a newborn baby. SLIDE Wyatt I asked Gina if I could hold him. She said yes. I held him right up to my heart. As I held this newborn gift from God I couldnt help but marvel that his whole life was in front of him. This was the first day of many days of his life. There was so much that he was going to experience. Everything was potential. Who remembers holding a baby on the first day of their life? Isnt it amazing? Wyatt is us. You and I as a new church are Wyatt. Weve been worshipping together for a little more than two years. Everything for us is potential. This is a great gift that most established churches dont have. We can be as creative as we want. We are not hindered by our past.

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Often in an established church when someone shares a new and creative idea the response can be the seven last words of a church. We dont have to worry about the seven last words of the church. Were not anchored to a past. Starting in the middle of June were going to have our primary worship time in the summer be on Wednesdays at North Point Elementary. The Steering Committee will vote on this tomorrow night. This is a terrific opportunity for us to offer a worship experience for people who are gone on the weekends. And we can do it at a place near our property. And were going to worship in a completely different way. Worship will be casual, conversational and engaging. Your friends are going to love this service. When you leave worship on Wednesday, June 20th I think youre going to say, I liked that. The service is at 6:30. If you work come right to worship. Were going to have some grab and go food. Well be sitting at circular tables so you can eat your food during worship. The service is going to last about 45 minutes. Were going to have sundaes when were done. Were calling it Sundaes s-u-n-d-a-e-s Our primary worship service is on Wednesday. Unless you work on an evening we want you to come then. Well have a small group that will meet on Sunday mornings that will have a worshipful feel here at the Senior Center. If we were an established church we couldnt do this. Were just like Wyatt. Everything is in front of us. Just like we as a baby church want to take the right path we want Wyatt to take the right path. The Scriptures can instruct us. The Psalm that Chuck read is one of my favorites. The Psalm presents two paths. One is healthy and the other is not.

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On this day that weve celebrated Wyatts baptism we want him to take the right path. Id like us to read this Psalm as a blessing to Wyatt. Its a prayer for him. Ive paraphrased it a bit SLIDE Blessed is Wyatt when He does not follow the advice of the wicked, Or takes the path that sinners take Or scoffs at everything But his delight is in the way of the Lord And on Gods way he meditates frequentlyday and night. SLIDE Wyatt will be like a tree Planted by streams of water Which yields its fruit in its season, And his leaves do not wither This is what we want for Wyattthat hell always take the right path. Wyatt is fortunate because he has two terrific parents and loving grandparents. He has two older sisters who will dote on him for a long time. He has a terrific family. On Wednesday night I had the privilege of visiting with Kevin and Gina and Avery and Mya and Wyatt. I had such a blast. Avery & Mya were so excited to see me. Mya wanted to make sure I had some chocolate cake. There was a beautiful spirit of happiness and laughter. I was there for about a hour, and we giggled most of the time. I got to hold Wyatt again. Gina had just nursed him. So I got to burp him. W spit up on my shirt. Gina was a bit embarrassed. I loved it. I went home that night and told Hannah and Amy. Hannah put her nose up to my shirt and said I love that smell. Wyatt has a family who will do everything to keep him on the right path. The reality is that sometimes even good parents and good siblings are not enough to ensure a youth will stay on the right path. Besides his family Wyatt is going to need good friends and a good school system, and a lot of caring adults. And W is going to need a good church.

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Thats you and me. I dont believe that children and youth can develop to be the people God desires for them to be unless they have a strong church and unless they are involved in that church. Without being involved in a strong church and without his own personal faith W will always be susceptible to the wrong path. He needs us to be an authentic Christian community where I have to level with you. For a long time I believed that a person could take the right path without a church. Let me tell you a story about how I changed my mind about the importance of a church. Ive been involved in the church my entire life, but I havent always taken church or God all that seriously. When I was in high school I was consumed by how the Worthington Trojans would do on the football field on Friday night. I was the captain of the team and there was nothing that was more important to me than winning the conference championship. I had no choice but to be involved in church. But I never went to youth group because I was too cool for that. I was the captain of the football team. I kept playing football in college. I was still involved in church, but believe me there was nothing more important to me than having the Carleton Knights win a football game on Saturday afternoons. After college I ended up in Los Angeles. I was working with the farm workers. Every now and then I had dreams about being a football coach. I was going with a girl who lived within walking distance of the Rose Bowl. One New Years Day we walked to the stadium bought some tickets on the spot and watched Arizona State and Michigan play a game. It was a fabulous pageant. The colors and the atmosphereit was very intoxicating. I hadnt even been drinking.

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The next day I had a Rose Bowl hangover. I hadnt even been drinking. I came to a realization that had an impact on me. The game ended. We all went home. Everyone went back to their life. I loved playing football, but every football game has an ending. The clock ran out. Every football player takes off their uniform and goes back to life. I came to realize that there is something in this universe that doesnt end. Thats God and our faith and our church. I realized that faith is more enduring than sports. I came to believe that for a kid to stay on the right path it was really important that the kid had a strong faith and was involved in a church. This is a difficult time for church leaders who love youth. Unless you have tons of resources which most churches dont have, we have a hard time competing with sports. We live in a culture that has sold out to youth sports. When I drive to the office on a Sunday morning on Radisson Road I will often see hundreds of youth and adults playing and watching a soccer game. I know that those youth will often play soccer on a Wednesday night. Theres part of me that wants to stop and watch. I love sports and youth sports. My daughter plays youth basketball. I get an E-mail a week from the Blaine basketball association telling me about summer basketball opportunities or a special practice that they are holding. There is a part of me that would love for Hannah to be a terrific basketball player. All of us have dreams for our kids. I hope that every youth at Chain of Lakes is in sports. The challenge is that sports can be consuming. There is no time left for faith or church. Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings are full of games. I think its fair to ask of all youth sports associations give the churches Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings.

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Wyatt could grow up to be the best hockey player in the history of the north Metro. He could make millions of dollars for his family. But without a strong personal faith and a connection to a faith community he will always run the risk of taking the wrong path. We in the church are very responsible also. Its up to us to design ministries that are engaging to youth and children. We have to use tools of youth culture. We cant go back to a model of the 1950s and expect them to learn. We have a group who has been meeting this year called the Children and Youth Ministry Task Force. Were designing the principals that we would like to see form our youth ministry at Chain of Lakes. Ive shared this before and Ill keep saying it, but one of the principals that is important is the congregation is the youth minister. Its up to every adult (even those without kids) in the congregation to take a role in those ministries. We need every adult to be involved. We need some of you to be a teacher. To be a teacher is really not that hard. You receive a simple curriculum that Joanne Shingledecker has put together. Its not that hard. Right now most of our teachers only teach twice a month. We need you. We need some of you to be on our Education team. We want to expand our Education team to at least six adultspreferably most of them will be parents. To be on the Education team doesnt mean you have terrific expertise in education. What it primarily means is you love youth. We need everyone to be committed to our Core Value of Investing in Future Generations. We understand that to mean that our priority is to create an atmosphere where children, youth and young adults grow in their faith. If we are a senior saint that means we might have to get out of our comfort zone. We might have to worship on a Wednesday night; we might have to come to a worship service with a

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band; we might have to come to a worship service with moving videos. We still come because we are committed to this Core Value. There is a lot at stake in how well we do. This year five of us at Chain of Lakes have been mentors at Lino Lakes Elementary STEM. Its really been fun. We go twice a month and have lunch with a kid. Thats all we dohave lunch and play a game. This Thursday is the last day of our mentor lunches until next fall. I really hope that we can get many more adults from Chain of Lakes in the fall. When we received training for this program, Kathy Bystrom (the woman who trained us), shared with us that the greatest gift we can give these kids is our presence and consistency. The kids we will have lunch experience so much inconsistency from adults and have been let down so often that just knowing there is an adult who is consistent is helpful. Im paired with a kid who I am going to call Henrywhich of course is not his name. When Im with Henry he does things that push my buttons. If my daughter, Hannah, did some of the stuff that Henry did I would be a wreck. Hes not destructive. Its little things. For example when I show up at the school for Mentor lunch Henry and I walk to the cafeteria to get our milk. Youd think that walking down the hall with a kid is easy. Its not. Henry runs ahead to talk to someone, or hell duck into a room to talk to a teacher, or hell hit one of his friends who he sees, or hell yell at someone. If Hannah did that I would be a basket case. My role is just to be present and not to have my buttons pushed. So I keep walking. I dont say anything to Henry. Eventually Henry will get his milk and end up at the right place. Hell start talking to me. He knows that Im consistent.

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Every adult can do on thing in a church for kids. You can be consistent. The best way to be consistent is to show up for worship and talk to a youth. When you show up for worship and talk to a youth you are sharing your interest and consistency. One final point about youth. When I celebrate a baptism I like to think about the day the child will graduate from High School. For Wyatt that will be June 2030. That might seem like a long ways away, but its really not. Time goes fast. Lets fast forward to the day that we at Chain of Lakes honor high school graduates. We will have grown so lets imagine he is surrounded by 20-30 other youth. By that time well have a building so well be in a building. Well have about four to five hundred people in worship. The question I have for us is this. What do we want for Wyatts personal faith to look like on that day. What will his personal faith look like? Just giving him a community is not enough. He needs a faith. We want him to be a disciple. I hope that SLIDE I hope that Wyatt will see Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He will see himself as a Jesus pilgrim. He has received the gifts that Jesus has given him and lives his life according to the love of Christ. I hope that the decisions he makes will be based on his faith. I hope that his heart will have been touched by the many mission trips he took with other youth at Chain of Lakes. He knows that he made an impact on others I hope that Wyatt will know the one story of the Biblethat God loves him and that love is best displayed through Jesus Christ I hope that Wyatt is engaged in the world. I hope that he and his family and others at Chain of Lakes have build many Habitat house. Most of all I hope that Wyatt will always mediate on the way of the Lord. He will be a treeplanted by streams of water that yield its fruit in its season. In all that he does he prospers.