CLC Charleston Youth Ministries

The Start of a New year is always an exciting time for me. For several years now, I have started every year with a plan to purge and organize my home. I have used several checklists, project plans, website motivators, etc to help with this process and, most years, I am pretty successful cleaning, purging, and organizing... until about March. By March, the bulk of what needs to be done is done and I start to lose interest in continuing the effort. I find myself saying things like, "it's good enough," "I can get back to that later," and "no one else cares about that but me." These statements, while true, leave the year always feeling like there is junk somewhere that I didn't take care of and it leaves me a feeling of job incomplete. As my life has increased in responsibilities, activities, jobs, and kids, I find it more and more difficult to stick to the plan and not lose my motivation as "more important" things take their place.   A few t...

I grew up in a home that did not celebrate Halloween. I was even withdrawn from a school year when my mom got wind of the nuns wearing witch hats and a Halloween festival of sorts was being hosted in the field behind the school. We didn’t trick or treat and we proudly claimed not to celebrate Halloween when asked what were our plans for October 31st. Instead, our church hosted an All-Saints’ Eve Night, a festival of harvest and a celebration of saints on the eve of All Saints’ Day, November 1 st . There were games, cake walks, candy treats, and costumes. Everyone was challenged to prepare biblical costumes. The intent was to keep the event family-friendly and Jesus-centered. We had your typical shepherds, a few sheep or other ark animals, the occasional Mary, and so on. But every year, someone would knock it out of the park. I remember one All St. Eve; my sister’s gown was beautiful. She was Esther the Queen and boy, did she look it! (Ester Chapter 2) It was only years later in adultho...

Did you know that there are over 100 references to knees in the Bible? Most of them are about being on our knees in prayer and many are about strengthening our knees.  Growing up, and even still in my Lutheran church, we always knelt during confession.  I attended a Catholic mass with a friend and we knelt several times throughout her service.  I used to spend the night with a family who actually knelt by their bedsides every night for evening prayer. Have you ever asked why kneeling is such an important posture in religion, specifically during prayer? Why does God give so much attention to us being on our knees when we talk to Him?  The Washington Post asked the question,  'Is Kneeling Important to You During Worship?," in their online segment titled, "Voices," on October 5, 2003. A few responders are quite quote-worthy.   "When I kneel, it is like a signal to my entire being to concentrate on God, not on the world. It is a physical attitude that help...