Author: The Rev. Andy Greenhow

Earlier this spring, I went on a mini-retreat with a group of high schoolers to start considering spirituality in college and beyond. I gave them three questions to wrestle with throughout the day, questions that I think are core to faith development in emerging adulthood.

Who are you?

Who are you in God?

Who are you in community?

It won’t surprise you to learn that their engagement with these questions was thoughtful, engaging, and enlightening, and I’ve been thinking since then that these aren’t just questions for young people going forth into the world. These are good questions for us all to wrestle with as things change in our own lives.

Diagnoses, job changes, deaths of loved ones, relocations, changes in our communities: these are all good times to ask again, “Who am I? Who am I in God? And who am I in community?”

The school year is coming to an end. Seniors are moving on to the next phase of their lives. Their lives are very much in flux, but so are ours. So, during this graduation season, I thought I’d reprise the prayer I offered in worship a few weeks ago, which is adapted from a prayer for leaving home in Call on Me: A Prayer Book for Young People by Jenifer Gamber and Sharon Ely Pearson. Let this be a prayer of blessing for seniors, and for us, as we all discern who we are in God and in community.

God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah, and Rachel, you call us to new and sometimes unknown places with the promise of a full life through your grace and mercy.

We pray today for those leaving home for a new place. Empower our bodies, minds, and spirits to receive this new journey, and give us a spirit of anticipation and delight.

Take away all the fear of the unknown, for whatever lies ahead, for you will be with us.

We pray that you sharpen our ears to hear your call. Clear our eyes to see your path. Strengthen our hands to do your service.

Protect us from the perils of this world. Grant us wisdom to make good choices. Fortify our faith to take risks to do your work.

As we leave this familiar place, help us continue to grow in love and service to you.

We make this prayer of many names, in the name of your son, Jesus, who was born, who grew up in a faith community, who left home. Amen.

My first act as the Interim Pastor for Youth & Their Families at BMPC was riding the bus down to Montreat Camp & Conference Center for the 2024 summer youth conference. I knew that 15 of the 40 or so young people on the bus were from Bryn Mawr, but I didn’t know which ones. By the end of the week, I had a strong sense not just of which kids on the bus were in my care but of their idiosyncrasies, hopes, and visions for themselves and their world.

These relationships opened up over a week of worship, reflection, recreation, and, most of all, open space for nothing in particular. Our lives – and the lives of the young people in our church – are full, and there is no space for the things of secondary importance, let alone things like “open space for nothing in particular.”

But we have a call–a law, actually–in the Ten Commandments to set aside one day a week for rest and for God. That’s hard to imagine on a weekly basis, but maybe, if we zoom out a little bit, we can picture it annually. Part of our Lenten disciplines is about giving a portion of the year to our relationship with God, but summer can be good for this, too.

This summer, there are great opportunities for the young people in this church to have some space to dedicate more directly to their relationship with God and their relationships with each other. Rising 6th graders through graduated seniors are invited to a mission trip with our partners at CROSS Missions in Charlotte, NC, from July 6-11. They will have the opportunity to learn more about the various facets of urban poverty and begin to address those issues with their work. Rising 7th graders through graduated seniors are invited to camp at Montreat Camp and Conference Center in Montreat, NC, from July 26-August 2.

In both cases, the week will be filled with worship, reflection, recreation, and, best of all, open space for nothing in particular. This is where the relationships grow and develop, with God, with peers, and with caring adults.

I’m looking forward to this time with the youth of this church, and I hope you have an opportunity for open space as well–this Lent and beyond.

Planning for Youth Sunday, occurring this Sunday, February 9, in the 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. services, has been underway for the better part of two months. Our preachers – Nina Bertrand, Maeve Daley-Gibson, and Kylie Liggett – have been writing, re-writing, encouraging one another, and getting used to preaching from a pulpit. They’ve met with Pastor Agnes to better understand the process of preaching and what makes a great sermon. Our high school Sunday school and Wednesday night Student Serve programs have been devoted to understanding all the parts of the worship service and writing liturgy that honors the tradition while interpreting it from their particular perspective. It has been a profoundly enriching experience.

In my former life in theological education, we spent a lot of time talking about formation. How do we form our students in the classroom, in worship, in informal interactions, and in our work as staff and administrators? And more importantly, what does all that formation yield when seminarians graduate and go on to become pastors themselves?

When I came to this call last summer, I knew to expect a high degree of excellence instilled in the young people of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church. After all, their formation includes coaches who are former pros, access to unbelievable resources, attendance at the best schools, and an ambient culture of high performance. They are excellent and your experience on Youth Sunday will reflect that.

But more than that, and more importantly, what you will find on Youth Sunday is great faithfulness. You will hear from young people who have been formed in the church to wrestle with Biblical texts, find meaning for their own lives, exegete the culture that has formed them, and imagine another world.

Come to worship on Sunday and marvel at the excellence of the young people of this church. But more than that, allow yourself to be challenged and formed for greater faithfulness, as they desire to be.

Oh, and go birds!!

In 2018, I went with a delegation from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary to visit our partners at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, Egypt. People in Egypt have a different conception of time than we do. There is a strong sense of the imminence of the past in the present. For example, when asked for a brief history of the seminary, people would invariably say something like, “Certainly. Saint Mark came to Egypt in the 1st century…” 2,000 years is as brief as it gets in Egypt!

I returned to Egypt last Christmas with my spouse, mother, and brother. Many of the Christians we met this time around spoke with great pride about how, even before Saint Mark came to Egypt, the holy family found refuge in Egypt shortly after Jesus’ birth. Matthew 2 recounts King Herod’s infuriation at the prophecies he heard from the wise men about the boy Jesus, an infuriation that led to his ordering the murder of all baby boys near Bethlehem. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph waited out this slaughter in Egypt until Joseph had a dream that it was safe to return.

Just as there was a straight line from Saint Mark to the seminary in Cairo, there was a straight line from providing shelter to the holy family in their time of need to extravagant hospitality for Christians traveling far away from home at Christmastime. These ancient stories had an immediacy in their present moment.

We do not have the luxury of monuments millennia old all around us to remind us of our connection to the past. Nevertheless, I hope you feel the immediacy and imminence of the Christmas story in your life this season. I hope you have the chance to see in yourself or someone else those qualities, whatever they are, that led to God becoming incarnate in people just like us. I hope you have the chance to offer hospitality to people in need, like the holy family in Bethlehem. I hope you have the chance to show compassion to those from faraway places seeking refuge, like the holy family in Egypt. I hope you have the chance to outsmart the King Herods of the world, just like the wise men did. I hope the Christmas story is alive in your life this season.

Merry Christmas.

Pastors, especially interim ones like me, step into stories that began long before they arrived in a congregation and will continue to be told long after they leave. Why things are done in an idiosyncratic way, why certain people or committees are at odds, or the fabled origins of a beloved tradition are common stories pastors must navigate. Of course, this can be challenging, but other times, it is a delight to step into a story that started before you and will continue long after you. The annual youth Thanksgiving Pancake Breakfast, occurring next Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, from 8:30-11:30 a.m. in Congregational Hall, is one such delightful story.

I have heard the breakfast described as a homecoming of sorts, where the kids whom we have sent off into the world return home as young adults or where families that have moved away return to see old friends. One colleague told me the breakfast pretty much runs itself as people of all ages pitch in to decorate, cook, eat (that part is important), wash dishes, and clean up.

We’re heading into a season that, for many of us, is a time of joy. For others, it is a season of dread that we’re just trying to survive. As relationships change or loved ones pass away, traditions that were once delightful become melancholy. Likewise, sad stories we didn’t realize were keeping us stuck can be told in new ways to become a source of new life and hope.

Whatever else Thanksgiving looks like for you, joyful or otherwise, I hope you start your day by joining us in telling the longstanding and delightful story of the Thanksgiving Pancake Breakfast. Bring a friend. Sign up to volunteer by clicking here. Throw caution to the wind and go for the chocolate chip pancakes. By the way, this event has morphed from fundraiser into funraiser recently… and that’s a tradition I wouldn’t mind changing! Please consider donating beyond the $5/person or $20/family to support the Youth Ministry at BMPC.

This year, I’m thankful to be part of the story being told at BMPC. I look forward to seeing you next Thursday.

One of the great delights of moving back from a faraway place is reconnecting with old friends and discovering that they’re even better than I remember. High on that list for me are some dear friends who serve as the Presbyterian chaplains at Princeton University. While visiting a local bakery, they shared some difficult stories of the spring semester, fraught with campus protests, and about their desire as chaplains to live up to their students. “Huh,” I thought and returned to my cannoli cronut, thinking mainly of how good it was to return to a land of reliably good bougie pastries.

Shortly after that, I received a call from a young clergywoman, who was entering her first call, asking if I would consider working with her as a coach. I hesitated, thinking I had nothing to offer until I realized that, when I was her age, I looked to people my age now for mentorship and coaching just as she was doing with me. I had been looking for people to live up to. Cue the mid-life crisis… and then commit to being the best coach I can be for her.

And, amid all this, there were providential conversations with BMPC about the position of Interim Associate Pastor for Youth & Their Families. I’ve been so impressed with the other pastors, lay leaders, Youth Council members, and families. However, in my short time in this position, the youth of BMPC have impressed me the most. They are committed to environmental justice, showing deep compassion to others, stepping into leadership positions, and taking risks. During the week with 15 middle and high schoolers from BMPC at the Montreat Youth Conference, my friends’ insights from the spring semester hit me anew. So often, we think we need to live up to the ones who came before us, but isn’t it the task of a college chaplain to live up to the students, the task of a coach to live up to the person being coached, and the task of a youth pastor to live up to the youth in their care? Likewise, I would add that the task of an interim is to live up to the person soon to be called to the permanent position.

This will be my approach to being your Interim Associate Pastor for Youth & Their Families. I’m looking forward to getting to know you!