What is Space for Grace?

We are taught from a young age that we have to fight for our creative freedom.  Because youth and adults alike are so often told what to do and how to do it, we are frequently forced to strive for results when we might rather simply embrace creativity itself.  God wants to play with us.  The Spirit of God streams playfully re-creating continually.  We can spend time with God without specific ideas of what we want.  This is a new approach to ministry.  It is about creating space for grace that is grounded in the Word of God.  As God fills the space with mercy and love, everything is transformed.Oasis youth activities allow youth to experience time with God.

Today youth are struggling to find ways to get out from underneath oppressive voices and demands.  At times it can seem like there is nothing but chaos going on in their  lives and in our world.  Only God can penetrate through our struggles to help us to make a place for ourselves.  Oasis activity times have a usual order of events that youth can rely on to be familiar each time.  These times include free time to meet and play games together, a hot meal, worship, and small group participation.  However, the time between worship and small groups is the creative space where the Gospel is proclaimed in unexpected and surprising ways.  Sounds, photography, art, movement, sculpture and video combine with the power of scripture to interplay freely with the spaces of our imaginations to provide a flash of possibilities.  Our work through these creative spiritual exercises is to construct many opportunities for youth to experience God. Teenagers want to come close to living what they can imagine in their heads.  At any age this dreaming is risky when it is not rooted in the ways of God.  None of us have the wisdom to figure out our lives on our own, so it is best if we rely on the constant flow of God through Word and Sacrament.  Jesus Christ is the living Word present and available to us through the Holy Scriptures, the waters of Holy Baptism and the bread and wine of Holy Communion.  Oasis activities are meant to be a supplement to regular prayer and worship in the church.  These extra  creative experiences at Oasis are designed to provide fresh spiritual input to augment the other images and sounds of the world that continually attack the senses.  The love of God overrides and heals the damage of the constant torrent of negativity and creates new imaginative contexts for growth in wisdom and in faith.

At times youth turn to drugs and alcohol to create a place of pleasure and/or escape.  Through Oasis experiences, youth learn to experience the pleasure of God and the escape from their fears and anxieties. Unlike drugs and alcohol, times spent with God provide growth and healing, forgiveness and hope.  Youth begin to realize that time with God is a euphoria that helps make lasting change, not just escape.  When we make space for grace, we include sounds, images and parts of life that represent anger and pain, because youth live in a harsh world where nothing ever seems forgotten or forgiven.  Space for grace is about getting everyone’s attention by admitting that life is difficult.  We all too often try to carry our sins around with us.  Unfortunately, many sins are even seen as badges of honor.  Through these creative times of reflection on God, we can all be invited to explore the impact of our choices and to consider our need for forgiveness.  “The Gospel is not simply a message about God’s grace: it is the very means by which grace and salvation are given” (Luther’s Small Catechism [Gausewitz edition], 1956, page 191). Forgiveness of sins, life and salvation are made more accessible as the Good News is presented and proclaimed in ways that grab all of our senses.  Accessing the fullness of the Gospel requires training in the use of all of our means of perception, instincts and intellect.  Consider how long it took the disciples to “get it” and they were walking with Jesus every day for three years!  Oasis exercises are designed to slow down our sensory responses.  Hearing, seeing, touching, feeling and tasting are all experienced in the light of fully exploring the depth of meaning available to us.  The idea is to allow God to fight for the space inside the experience so that we learn to feel like we could understand what God is saying to us if we wished to try.

What is setting a pace for grace?

There is a rhythm to God’s grace that gets interrupted by almost everything in our culture today. The sting of embarrassment is one of the main things that we need to get through in order to begin to create space for grace.  Teenagers, just like most people, are painfully self-conscious.  Because we have created spiritual experiences where youth have opportunities to look inward without others watching, the Word of God is free to penetrate the darkness,  shadows and doubt that are bombarding their spiritual formation.  Youth can be encouraged by experiencing God at Oasis activities.  The twisting and turning of our awkwardness into self-esteem is where God creates  choices for us.  That knowledge that God does create choices provides room for hope. Because we all feel like we are constantly chasing the unattainable, youth are actually up for times of being still.  The idea of creating pace for grace is to provide occasional stark, bare silences so that the presence of God is strong in the places that it appears.  Youth can learn to practice silence even though they are wired to panic initially when suddenly everything seems still.  Often God seems most silent in the space between struggle and breakthrough.  We all can be helped to embrace and not fear the stillness.

At Oasis we have to allow time for the most serious moments and expect God to show up.  Once the stripped down space is available, youth don’t have to strain to keep their focus.  Only God reigns in the absence of sound and motion.  Offering quiet moments throughout the sessions provides a welcome contrast to the ongoing noise of the world.  Getting participants to close our eyes, mouths and ears to distractions generates unfamiliar energy that cuts through time and space.

What does it mean to be grabbed by grace?

By creating space for grace, youth and adults have the opportunity to be grabbed by grace.  During these spiritual exercises, at times youth and adults may shift in their seats, yet also shift in their thinking.  At times some may even grasp the love and mercy of God as God is present changing perceptions.  When God is given the stage to be the actor, youth may begin to feel that they want to be more fully alive in this time and in this place that has been provided.  Being grabbed by grace is reality shattering that helps us think again and begin again our lives.Through these creative activities grounded in The Word, God can pull out of the space for grace something that doesn’t yet exist in the hearts and minds of youth.  Not much light exists in that space until God and we manifest new ways of thinking about ourselves and our world.  By allowing space for grace on any given occasion, youth can experience the Word of God combined with possibilities that can never be taken away from them.  Each encounter with God has the potential to create something new in us — a new connection with God and a different way to see the world.  Not only youth are transformed, but everyone who has participated has been attended to by the Living Word present in our time together.