COMMENTARY: A futuristic glimpse of ministry to youth Gavin Richardson, Aug 19, 2009
Gavin Richardson
By Gavin Richardson Special Contributor
It’s a Saturday in the year 2400, and Zahn is busily working on his message for the coming Sunday. He’s part of the Outer Limits ministry, which connects congregations around three planets.
Today, he’s working from Acts 2, in the Futurists Universe Translation of the Bible, naturally.
“Fellow humans, and all that live in the Kingdom! These are not Andromedans, for they have never been out of this galaxy. This is what our prophets spoke to us.”
Zahn has always enjoyed this story of community and the idea of different cultures coming together.
Just then, he receives a ringing in his communications chip. Zahn taps his head and a visual hologram appears of one of his teenagers, Jessup (one of the oldest and more active teenagers in the ministry). Jessup is visibly upset.
Annika, Jessup’s girlfriend from the Saturn moon Titan, has broken up with him, and Jessup is worried he’ll never find another person like her in the entire Milky Way galaxy. Jessup is now convinced he will grow up alone.
Zahn talks with Jessup for over an hour, trying to convince him that life will go on. Zahn cannot conceive why this is such a big deal for Jessup. After all, Jessup has never physically met Annika. Their parents won’t let them teleport more than two leaping stations. (To get to Saturn, it’s four jumps. But you knew that.)
Jessup and Annika met in one of Uranus’s virtual cities. From what Zahn heard, the two had been rather intimate with their hologram images, but he was not sure how to address or even approach that sensitive topic. Zahn ends up teleporting over to Jessup’s house to give him a hug and pat on the back.
“It will be OK. Just hang in there. I know it hurts.”
Just as Zahn refocuses on putting together his Sunday message he hears the ring of his communications chip again. This time it’s Annika’s mother, and she wants more information about next month’s camping trip to the moon.
“Who are the images that will going with the group?” she asks. “I’ve heard that we cannot see our children’s lifestream and coordinate movements when they are on the dark side of the moon. Is that true?”
Zahn assures her there will be plenty of adult images present on the camping trip. And of course, Space Google has just upgraded its three dark-side-of-the-moon communications space stations so parents can track their youth without any interruption.
Finally, back to the FUT Bible.
“Everyone was enamored and in awe of wondrous Heavens and its work. The Lord added to them the blessings of new days.”
On Sunday, Zahn goes to church at 0500 universal standard time. The congregation is a decent mix of holograms and actual kids. (You can tell from the sunburns that some of the holograms had vacationed on Mercury, but they are present today in pixeled spirit, so that is enough for Zahn.)
The other adult images are checking in with the young people.
“How are you doing?”
“How was your week?”
“Why did you go to the Red Banks of Mars?”
The Outer Limits worship team plays music via hologram piped in from the ministry’s main campus. The teenagers seem to care little for it; they are too busy talking to each other.
Zahn calls the group together. Holograms sit comfortably, interspersed between the flesh-and-blood young persons. Zahn looks over the group, his group, and begins:
“May the Peace and Mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of Heavens be with You!”
Mr. Richardson is director of youth ministries at First UMC in Hendersonville, Tenn., and is a board member at UMR Communications. He blogs at www.gavoweb.com & is on twitter at www.twitter.com/gavoweb.
Gavin Richardson
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