Blessing of Teens

Growing up I remember frequently hearing the foreboding, ominous phrase, “Just wait until she’s a teenager!” It usually came after my Grandmother (who raised me) would recount to a friend what child-like mischief I had gotten into. Whether it was insisting that I could teach myself to fly or striking up conversation with the supermarket bagboys at age 4, the precocious (and sometimes lauded) behavior I exhibited in those early years was always followed by that warning.

“Tween” wasn’t a term back when I was turning 10. However, as my feelings got bigger (and my Grandfather would say my mouth did, too) the warning changed from being directed around me to directed to me. “Oh, you’re becoming a rotten teenager!” Imagine my horror upon turning 13 to realize I had officially graduated into “rotten teenager” status.

I know it wasn’t uncommon for my peers to hear it too, and even less so for my birthparents’ generation. In fact, I’d wager that we were wearing the weight of their transgressions. It did, however, stick with me in a deep and abiding way. When I was a teenager, I was involved with Key Club, Girl Scouts, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and very active in my youth group. What could be so terrible and rotten about that? 

It’s probably for this reason that I knew I always wanted to work with teenagers. I wanted them to hear an opposing voice to help counter-act what had become a mainstream, socialized, and accepted opinion – teenagers were the problem.

You’ve all heard me say more than once, we are blessed with an incredibly wonderful group of teenagers (and up and coming teens) at All Saints’. Hopefully, you’ve been able to attend one of the many events they’ve either participated in or flat-out run since our return to community life post-lockdown. You’ve seen our teens be industrious, generous, thoughtful, hard-working, compassionate, as well as incredibly curious about deepening their faith.

Sometimes they are rambunctious, but I call that energy. Sometimes they are emotional to the point of irrationality, but I call that passion. Perhaps, at times, they commit a faux pas engrained in all of us as to the “rules of church,” but I see that as comfortable in a space being exactly who they are – and isn’t that exactly the space we want to provide?

Our teenagers at All Saints’ genuinely feel the support and love that you, the parishioners, give them so freely. You have, by example, shown them how to live and love as community in this building. It’s one of the reasons that more EYC dinners than not the kids pull all the tables together, because they’d prefer to squish 20 people around 2 round tables than to separate themselves. They are learning to love themselves because All Saints’ is providing them a space in which they feel loved.

Loved people go out as disciples of Christ in order to make disciples for Christ. I am so excited for this coming Sunday’s Blessing and Prayers for the teenagers and those that help care for them, and I hope that whether you attend in person, online, or in spirit, you will join us Sunday in praying for the continued wisdom, love, generosity, and faith in the journey that is “teenager.”

Tiffany Fulton
Director of Youth and Family Ministry