Good morning, and welcome to All Souls. My name is Angie McAllister.
Last February, my husband and I took a retreat dedicated to reflecting on how we’re doing on our most important life responsibility: raising our two teenagers, Zack and Candace.
To start, we drew up a list of criteria to grade ourselves against. It included cultivating several aspects of our kids’ lives and their character: things like….their intellectual habits, their emotional wellness, their creative selves, service to others, their spiritual lives, and their moral fiber.
So we were drafting a kind-of parenting report card, and within a few minutes we began heartily congratulating ourselves on earning straight A’s for the first three items. Our kids are terrific students, their emotional intelligence quotients are pretty high (as teenagers go), and they are avid musicians, bursting with creativity.
But then, we got to the bottom three line items: the stuff about service to others, and their moral and spiritual wellness. We earned D’s...and that was grading generously on curve.
The following Sunday, our family came to All Souls for the first time (actually to CHURCH for the first time). Within a week, Zack and Candace had joined Religious Education classes and youth group, and they haven’t missed a session yet.
Since then, they’ve served the hungry at Monday Night Hospitality, they’ve demonstrated and marched to demand social & environmental justice, they’ve joined their youth group in volunteering in needy communities.
Through religious education and youth group here at All Souls, they’ve very intentionally and thoughtfully explored--and indeed constructed--deep convictions about justice, sexuality, gender, kindness, the meaning of worship, of love, of the sublime...of God….truly for the first time in their young lives.
Zack and Candace today--a year later--are more edified, more thoughtful people, and for that we are tremendously grateful to those All Souls teachers who labor in love to cultivate a practice of service and spiritual & moral flourishing in all our youth.
It is because of them, incidentally, that my husband and I now have a solid B average on our parenting report card. So we thank them for that, as well.
And now, please stand as you are willing and able, and join me in repeating our Bond of Union, which is printed in your order of service.
In the freedom of the truth
And in the spirit of love
We unite for the worship of God
And the service of all