Trampoline Temple

Last updated on: June 21, 2007 at 7:06 pm by David Hayward

Trampoline Temple 2007-06-21T19:06:49-04:00 David Hayward

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This is my daughter Casile jumping on our trampoline. She manipulated the photo. Again, she shows talent, don’t you think? I have to tell you the first thought I had when I saw this pic: how much different this is than we are as grown-ups, and how far from this church can become. This young girl (14 years old), hops on the trampoline and jumps, makes a crazy pose, laughs, and has no concern for tomorrow. On top of this, she has a friend laughing on the ground taking a picture of her. On the one hand, they are very self-conscious and self-aware. On the other hand, they are free, careless, unfettered and completely oblivious, at this moment, to the seriousness of life and how sober church should be. Casile and her friends are crazy and beautiful. Sometimes they know it, sometimes they don’t. But, generally, they don’t let all this stuff ruin their day. They are determined to experience joy and make sure that others do too.

Church can tend to become so serious, so sober, so measured. Which is why I decided recently that one of the major activities of our church community will be to just party. No agenda, no program, to temple tedium, no religious rituals at all. Nada! Like this picture, we are just going to jump, make fools of ourselves, laugh and make others laugh, tease each other into a greater ease, freedom, carelessness and weightlessness. I realize, in many ways, that faith and spirituality is very serious and sober, but I also realize that, somehow, the gravity of it has been taken care of and we only bounce in the atmosphere of what’s already been accomplished for us. So I want to encourage my people to jump as high and as crazily as they can while being certain that they will surely land on solid ground.

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