Week 2: Vacation from Work, not from Worship
All Saints Episcopal Church, Kapaʻa, HI
When I was 16, my family went on vacation in Kauai. Every time we drove into town, we passed a small church with a red door and welcoming sidewalk lined with palm trees. I asked my parents if we could go to the cute church on Sunday. They said we could go to church, but it would be a Lutheran church (not the cute Episcopal church). Even though I didn’t get to walk through the cute red door, I got to worship in my Lutheran tradition with the same liturgy, but it was also different. People wore Hawaiian shirts and flip flops instead of ties and dress shoes. They dipped their bread in the common cup instead of receiving communion in little plastic cups. Then on the way out, I saw pictures on the bulletin board from the ELCA Youth Gathering in Atlanta earlier that summer. I was there too! To think, I may have been sitting in the same row in the arena or served in the same neighborhood as these Lutherans in Hawaii and we lived two time zones apart. By worshiping on vacation, I came to see the people in Kauai as my peers and siblings in Christ, not just a place to serve me as I “get away.”
We all need to take a break. We are not created to work non-stop. We are created to worship God and be in relationship with our Creator, our neighbors, and the world. When you take a break and head on vacation this summer, see the break as an opportunity to explore worship in a new place with a different community of believers.
Read this: Exodus 3:7-10 and Exodus 8:1
Try this: Worship some place new. Try informal worship outside or formal worship on a festival day. Explore other Christian denominations or another ELCA Lutheran church. Find a ELCA church here. Even if you aren’t going on vacation, you can try a different worship experience right in your city. Ask a friend if you can go to church with them (then invite them to come with you!) Don’t forget an offering to share.
Be Curious: What similarities and differences do you notice? What does this worship say about who God is?
Pray: Pray for the people, leaders, and ministries of the church you visited.