Walking Where Jesus Walked –
Saturday we went to a fundraiser at the Episcopal church we visit for a ministry named “Appalachian Service Project”. Basically teams of youth and adults go into poor parts of North Carolina and rehab houses. The youth sleep on the ground for a week, do most of the work, and the adults mostly mentor.

This sounds like one of the coolest youth programs I have ever heard of, especially for kids in an overprivileged area like we live in. Apparently the kids love it.

The comparisons between this activity and what my stake is doing is inescapable. We are sending our boys to scout camp and our young women to Young Women’s camp, where they will be surrounded by middle class white kids just like them, and will learn valuable skills like making baskets, cooking baked potatoes wrapped in foil in a campfire, making leather belts, etc.. The theme of our youth conference this year is “Walking Where Jesus Walked”. The kids will spend two days being lectured about Jesus, will go to two fun dances, will spend an afternoon outdoors playing fun games, and spend not more than a few hours on a nice safe service project for people they will never meet. They will stay in nice large comfortable homes and be fed abundantly.

In short, the kids from our Episcopal church will, in a small way, walk where Jesus walked. The kids from our stake will spend two days being talked to about walking where Jesus walked, in between fun safe activities.

I wonder which will be most effective. If the Second Coming were to happen this summer, where would we expect to find Jesus? In Appalachia, or in the air conditioned stake center?