Youth Take the Lead

On Sunday November 22, the children and youth of St. Michael and All Angels in Edmonton took over Zoom worship. A long-standing tradition at St. Michael has been to celebrate the children and youth of our parish on the last Sunday before Advent. ‘Children’s Sabbath’ is held on the closest Sunday to the anniversary of the ratification on the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child, which happened on November 20, 1989.

Our children and youth become the readers and leaders of our worship time. Showing off their amazing reading skills, the children of St. Michael’s are becoming confident readers for worship services. Thank you to everyone who worked hard and participated. Each year as we are able, a youth is encouraged to write a short homily reflecting on what it means to be a young Christian in today’s world. Sisa, at 14 years old, has written a homily twice. Below are her reflections on today’s world presented this year.

During this hard time, it has been very tough for everyone, considering we have not been through a crisis like this before. Therefore, I first would like to thank all the frontline health care workers for risking their own lives in order to help ours.            

Now, I'm going to talk about being a Christian during this time and how it has helped me.

Being a 14-year-old in this day and age could be seen as very different compared to older days, considering all the developments in technology. With that being said, technology has had a major impact on my life, both negatively and positively. The biggest negative aspect of it would be the fact that I almost feel that I could not live without my phone. I am constantly scrolling through different web pages and sites. I find that the amount of screen time I spend is excessively longer than ever before. I believe app developers use this to their advantage and upload information that could be false or considered as fake news. Unfortunately, it’s making it increasingly difficult to tell the difference between fact from fiction. With this in mind, people in the media can be a bad influence on me and other growing teenagers such as myself. I strongly think this could actually slowly pull us away from our faith.          

Our mental health is also being negatively affected, from all the content that we are consuming whether we think it is good or bad for us. I do find myself getting anxious from time to time. It is during these trying times that I find being a Christian very powerful. I know to set time for myself to connect with God and realize that the things that I get anxious about are not worth wasting time over. I get the reassurances from my connection with God that life is more than what we see online. There is a higher power who is ever faithful, loving and caring. My strong Christian belief has carried me through these challenging times. It really makes me proud to be a Christian during this time.

Sisa

Submitted by the Rev. Colleen Sanderson, Rector of St. Michael and All Angels, Edmonton