Church of Our Corn Hole: A Reflection from Emily Rutledge

Installment 1 of the Asheville Mission Trip Reflections

As anyone who works with teenagers will tell you, the most dangerous time is free time.  Free time is when tears come.  Free time is when feelings get hurt.  Free time is when a trip can fall apart and a group can unravel.  This year on our mission trip to Asheville free time was when the magic happened. 

What started as a few games of corn-hole the second night of the trip morphed into a full blown tournament complete with a bracket which consumed every second of free time there was until we drove back to Charlottesville.  Students who were not playing were watching.  Students were cheering.  Students were DJing. Students not interested in playing were staying near and doing work/coloring/hanging out.  Students were practicing in the sleeping rooms (we are a competitive bunch).  Our graduate/chaperone extraordinaire (this is the true beauty of bringing a chaperone who has been on many mission trips and has the energy of a teenager and frontal lobe of an adult) orchestrated what became the most competitive bonding experience I have ever witnessed.

I was approached on day three and asked if Fr. David would consider changing the church name to Church of Our Corn-Hole.

It was a beautiful sight; a group of people together playing a competitive game with love and kindness and only a little bit of hostility when losing.  The grace of it was everyone was part of something bigger.  That's the thing about belonging... when you truly feel like you are a part of something; that you are seen and valued, others' successes don't devalue your own worthiness.  There were times that students felt left out and someone would walk away from a conversation they were engaged in or an opportunity they enjoyed to show up for the person on the outside.  There were moments it was difficult to differentiate between someone feeling exhausted from a long day or unsure if they had a place in the group: their peers would check to see which they were feeling. 

Did they benefit from showing up for the person on the outs?

No. 

On some deep and spiritual level, yes, of course, but in that moment... no.  They were missing out on the thing that would have been easier and more enjoyable to help someone else.  The collective belonging was more important than the momentary individual joy.  Knowing that when one person is left out and hurting the community slowly becomes weaker means something on a real level to these kiddos. 

Short-term mission work is a dangerous choice.  Without real thought and intentional planning short-term mission trips can become a group living into the white savior complex instead of a community seeking to understand marginalized groups and both learn from them and respond to our baptismal covenant to 'seek and serve Christ in all person, loving our neighbor as our self'.

Everyday we are faced with both small and large scale marginalization in our lives.  The person without someone to eat lunch with and the refugee without an advocate.  The newcomer in the service that has no one to pass the peace with and the single mom with no one to help her with childcare over the summer.  The mildly annoying coworker who clearly feels left out in the office and the person experiencing homelessness who isn't sure what resources are available in the town they have found themselves in. 

Showing up for the marginalized, it's missional work.  It is what I pray grows from the week long trips we take in the summer and the hundreds of times we get gather over the course of students years in the youth community.  It's big and it's small.  It's a way of life and a choice.

It's almost always uncomfortable.

Creating belonging, creating a safe-space, creating some magical moment like our time in Asheville at Church of Our Corn Hole means a person who is doing just fine has to relinquish something to be sure that those who are not just fine get a little closer to it. 

Something might be time, money, an easy conversation, the comfort of what's natural, pride, or a million other things that we can put aside in order to allow others to feel worthy and seen. 

Being Church.  Being Christ.  Being Love. It means putting ourselves aside to make room for another.  Sometimes it is through advocacy work, by being a voice for the oppressed.  Sometimes it is through feeding or legally representing or giving medical care.  Other times it is through inviting and including and welcoming.

And then there are those times it is through corn hole. 

May the God of love, who we are promised in Ephesians created us to do good works, allow us to see them as they lay before us.  That no opportunity seem too small, too silly, too insignificant to be an opportunity to reveal the beloved nature of God and the innate worthiness of every one of God's people.