Fine and Grateful

I drove through the McDrive-Thru today to grab another glorious McRib meal. I do love those diabolically good sandwiches. When I handed the fellow my card to pay for said food, he asked me how I was. I said, "Just fine, how are you?"... I was expecting a usual response in return, however, he added a twist... He said, "Fine, and grateful." 

Grateful. Merriam-Webster Online defines grateful as

grate·ful

 adjective \ˈgrāt-fəl\

: feeling or showing thanks : feeling or showing thanks to someone for some helpful act

The website goes on to show the origin as:
obsolete grate pleasing, thankful, from Latin gratus 

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grateful)

Grace is the root of many words, including this one. In my Greek studies, χάρη or χάρις is the word meaning Grace. My Greek professor, Dr. David Fredrickson has said that the word could go further on to mean gift. Gifts are freely given, without requirement for anything in return. Grace is freely given, and we should indeed be grateful. To be grateful for being fine is grace enough. The man in the Drive-Thru was grateful for being fine. Shouldn't we all be grateful for being fine? Shouldn't we all be grateful for grace?

Coincidentally, tomorrow is the 496th anniversary of Martin Luther posting his 95 theses on the door of the church. Martin Luther was a huge proponent of Grace, and thus consequentially we as Lutherans generally have Ephesians 2:8-9 as confirmation verses to memorize. 

It's 'Parent-Teacher' conference time at the church, and the conferences are about me. That's right, I've started my first emotion-filled war at church, and hopefully it ends today.

Without getting into too much detail, as Youth Ministry Intern here at church, it is my duty to coordinate and lead 7-12gr activities including Confirmation. There's also a Sunday evening group that meets every other Sunday night called 'Ignite'. It was my understanding that this group was a chance for me to get to know the 7-12graders better, to have them get to know me better, and to share the Bible and life lessons with these students.

However, I wasn't received well and I soon found out that I was not doing things correctly. You see, with my educational background somewhat in Communication Studies, I know a little bit about communication theory. As part of many Comm Studies classes, we studied a theory called Expectancy Theory. I may have butchered this a little, but this theory basically states that if one is engaged in an action, and this action continues to happen, one expects a certain result from this activity. When that activity is disrupted with change, a different result can happen. When this different result happens, the original expected result is missed, and conflict can happen.

If one expects a person to act a certain way based on previous experiences, and then the person acts a different way, in an unexpected way, one can become uncomfortable in the result, and sometimes long for the original result. Conflict happens in this uncertainty.

Thus, I created conflict by acting a different way than was expected. The students at church expected 'Ignite' to be a certain experience. I created a different scenario for them due to my ignorance of past events. I had limited knowledge of previous 'Ignite' experiences, and thus I created a new 'Ignite' experience based on my understanding of the situation and the desires of the students.

I engaged them in deep discussions based on topics of classism and identity (two topics close to my heart), but they were expecting different conversations. I engaged them in talks about the Gospel for that Sunday, in texts that I could talk about. They expected none of that.

I gave them different results than their expected notions of what 'Ignite' was, and I created conflict without trying. I had no idea what they wanted, desired, or expected. I had a basic framework of what I thought it should be, and I was going against the grain of what the students wanted, desired, and expected.

So, on Reformation Sunday, I had expected to talk to the students about Martin Luther and the idea of change and Reformation. I was able to, but the students co-opted the discussion and gave a presentation on what they expected 'Ignite' to look like, and how I was to change my practices. We eventually came to an agreement, but I had to thump a Bible on my chest a few times for the students to get the picture.

Fine and Grateful. We should all be grateful for what we have. I'm grateful that I have such a great opportunity for ministry at this church, even with this rough reformation (or is it rough-ermation?)

I pointed out to the students that they wished to re-form their 'Ignite' experience to where it was once before. However, the irony is that I had already brought a re-forming of 'Ignite' and hopefully with the eventual conclusion of this conflict, the 'Ignite' experience will be finally resolved and reformed. What that will look like, we will have to see. But, in the end, we will be fine, and we will be grateful.

αμην