Katy, her mother whispered. “You better get up; church is in an hour.”

Only when her mother left the room, did Katy climb out of bed and begin dressing. It used to be that she wore a nice pair of dress pants and a blouse to the Sunday service, but nowadays she was only motivated to pull a black hooded sweatshirt over her head. She thought wearily of the morning that lay ahead—the up-and-down of the sermon and worship and communion, people talking at her and around her, but nobody really talking TO her. It had begun to depress her, that building.

She walked over to the mirror and rubbed Cover Girl over a zit on her chin. She didn’t always feel this way. When she was in high school—and even junior high, come to think of it—The Church was a place that drew her in, like a magnet, and kept her securely connected. Her youth pastor, Bob, was a wonderful man, always so interested in what she had to say and able to come back with some wise bit of advice. And funny, too! It was like talking to someone her own age, only without the angst. Looking back, Katy wondered if she might have had a bit of a crush on him, until she realized she’d felt the same way about his wife. Their behavior, their countenance was what Katy was really in love with, she saw now. It made her laugh—looking at her 20-year-old face in the mirror—to think of all this.

She remembered coming early for youth group to help “set up.” She and her friends would run around helping Bob test the microphones and get his little props in place. Then, once everybody came for the evening, the whole huge mass of teenagers would jump up and down, bumping into each other, as they sang the worship songs as loud as they pleased.

And then it ended. Nothing bad happened. Nobody did anything wrong. They just grew up. They graduated from high school, went off to college, got jobs. One girl got married. Most of them just wandered off. Nobody noticed they were gone, and nobody really missed them. Except Katy.

She pulled her hair into a ponytail and shrugged, but at the same time felt a twist of sorrow. The campfire they used to sit around at summer camp, talking about what was going on in their lives and praying, flickered across her mind like the memory of someone who had died.

Hosanna! Hosanna!

The congregation finished singing and sat down as the pastor jogged up to his podium. Katy scratched an itch on her ankle. Perhaps it was she who had died, because that was how it felt. She didn’t feel any life anymore when she sang. People were so inward, so private in their worship. She longed to jump up and down and bump into her mother, to shake her mind from this comatose state. But even her mother was standing at a distance, her eyes closed and hands raised upward, so Katy stayed where she was.

“And let us pray,” the pastor said, “for the junior-high students who, a week from today, are leaving on their missions trip to Baltimore. Dear God, we thank you for this group and all they are about to accomplish for your Kingdom. We pray that you watch over Becca and Rose, Brian, Susie…”

Everyone kept their heads bowed and eyes shut. Katy peeked at the pastor. Yep, just what she thought: He was reading the names from a list. Katy couldn’t think of why he was referring to them by name anyhow. By the end of service most of the people in here wouldn’t be able to come up with one name on their own. She sure wouldn’t. She didn’t know any of those kids. Nobody really did. Except their parents.

“Amen.”

Well, that was the end of that. “Okay kids, time’s up. Back where you belong. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Katy knew her thoughts were cynical. But it didn’t make them any less true. Still, she was glad word bubbles only happened in the comic strips.

The pastor began his sermon from the book of Romans…

“Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.”

When she was in junior high, Katy had participated in the Baltimore mission’s trip. They worked with poor children living in the inner city, helping out at an after-school program, praying with them, making meals for them. They even cleaned some of the living quarters at a homeless shelter. It made her feel pretty important, like she was making a difference. But when she got back there was the strangest sense that no one had even noticed they’d been gone.

The same thing happened years later, when the high-school group went to Peru. They came home excited, like they’d been a part of something that really mattered. But it seemed as though the church went on as if nothing happened. And maybe nothing did. Maybe it was just these teenagers it was happening to, and it made no difference to anyone else.

The pastor quoted from 1 Corinthians…”Now the body is not made up of one part but of many…”

Katy tried to listen, but it was hard to hear with the thoughts in her head pushing out the pastor’s words. What was she doing here? This all felt silly, sitting here in this pew. She felt like a child, eavesdropping on the adults’ conversation. She was lost when she was at church; some face no one knew anymore. A part that didn’t fit in anywhere.

The pastor continued…

“…The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable…”

That was it! THAT was how she felt…Like a foot—like a heel, actually—cut off from the rest of the body. The unintended pun made her chuckle inwardly, but she really did not feel at all like laughing. She felt sad and stupid for wanting to be needed.

After the benediction, Katy and her family—because they sat in the balcony—walked down the steps to the lobby. Together, but separately they went down, each staring ahead or fiddling with a cell phone. At the bottom, they split up, Katy’s father to the coffee pot and her mother to her group of friends. Katy’s eyes scanned the mass of people for someone—anyone—she still knew.

She made her way through the lobby without so much as making eye contact. She thought about when she was a little girl and went through a phase of wanting to be invisible. Then, Katy walked out the door and away.

Afterward:

We often hear how youth are “the future of The Church,” but what about the present? What about now? We’re here, sitting in the pews, wanting to be involved, wanting to know we are an important part of “The Church,” wanting to know we matter. Hey, everyone wants to be needed. It’s a basic human desire. We feel that way, too. We want to be taken seriously by adults who really care about us and take the time to get to know us, and who accept and appreciate what we have to offer. And we offer a lot!

Sure we like our own space and our own time to do our own thing. We’ve got that. It’s called “Youth Group,” and it’s great. Giving us our own ministry is fine, it’s important, but not at the expense of isolating us away from the rest of the church. That just makes us feel disconnected.

Besides, we aren’t going to stay kids forever, you know. Someday we’re going to grow up. What will become of us then? What kind of faith will we have later in life if The Church marginalizes us today? What’s to keep us there? Why should we stay?

Engage us. Involve us. Depend on us. Give us responsibility. Set high expectations. Let us use our talents. Help us feel like we belong to The Church at large.

If you do this, we might just hang around.