The Invisible Thread

This weekend at Westwinds, we hosted a child dedication. At the Winds, child dedication is not equated with baptism or any spiritual rite of passage. Rather, dedication is more of an opportunity for parents to acknowledge before everyone the commitment they are making to raise their child in a Godly home as well as an opportunity for the people of the Winds to pray for and sometimes meet a family for the first time.

As you all know, we usually do things a little different at the Winds. In huge part, because we believe it is a sin to bore people with the things of God, in part because we believe engagement and interaction is a crucial part of our experience, in part because we believe we are charged with making the weekend Fusion a moment collection, and in part . . . we get bored really easily.

I was proud of the setup, interaction, and dual-importance of this week’s dedication.

Lori Tate—our Children’s Journey Designer—did a fine job of setting up the morning by sharing a Chinese proverb about a red thread:

An invisible thread
Connects those who are destined to meet
Regardless of time, place, or circumstances.
The thread may stretch or tangle but will never break

Our folks were encouraged to gather around a table where they took a red string and tied it around their wrist or put it in their Bible, etc. to remind them to pray for the families.

And (here is a really cool part) . . .

Everyone strung beads onto a long red string that was later broken up for the families. The beads represented the prayers of our people for the families.

There was dual significance in all this in that the beads were purchased from BeadForLife—a nonprofit organization providing impoverished Ugandan women an opportunity to lift their families out of poverty by making beads out of recycled paper.

So, in more ways than one, the invisible (and the visible) red thread tied our families to our church and to other families around the world.

I am so proud of our church.

This post is also part of Watercooler Wednesday over at Ethos. Check it out here.