People in Progress

by Connie Thomas

Tonight in Community of Travelers, we talked about the concepts of Heaven and Baptism. How do you really explain these things? I mean, nobody really knows what heaven will be like, or what baptism does for you. Does baptism wash away original sin? If so, why wouldn't it be a tradition for adults? I mean, we've all built up some sorts of sins throughout our life. I think it would be awesome if you could choose when to start brand new. Maybe sometime in your 30s...

In the gospel tonight, Jesus tried to explain these concepts but was actually kind of confusing. So, we got to try our hand at explaining these concepts through some sort of creative activity (poem, skit, picture, song- whatever we wanted). We split into 2 groups- the heaven group and the baptism group.

I was part of the baptism group, and I'll be honest, I was nervous. We only had 15 minutes to put something together, and I was concerned it wasn't enough time to create something that would awe the other group. Pastor Megan reminded everyone, though, that perfection wasn't the goal. Even Jesus didn't explain these things in a crystal clear way. How could we expect to do any better?

In the end, the skits were exactly what they needed to be. The baptism group invited everyone to wash their hands in a bowl as a reminder that the simple act of washing ones hands can be a symbol of cleansing your soul. The Heaven group gave out Girl Scout Cookies (talk about heaven!), sang a song, and spoke about what heaven meant to them.

On another note- the title of tonight's post, People in Progress, wasn't the theme of the gospel. But, at the beginning of the service, Pastor Megan used this phrase to describe the Community of Travelers and it really struck me. We really are all in progress, and it's the basic theme of every service at CoT. Each week is a little different. Sometimes things go awry. Sometimes the service is funny and sometimes it's touching. Sometimes we all know the words and sing along, and sometimes we don't know any of the words but sing along anyway. But that's the thing- we're all imperfect and we're all learning.