Religion, Etc....

I'm not a big church-goer... mostly because I've worked on Sundays for most of my adult life. That doesn't make me an Atheist or Agnostic. I still worship in my own way.

When I was younger, I was very active in the church. At one point I was the the President of the Youth Group. The highlight of my term was the spend the night party at the church. It got a little out of hand. My first sign that things were going wrong was when I realized that the youth group had converted the church's nursery into a bar. There were 12-packs in the cribs, covered with blankets! The next morning, the sun came up and revealed empty beer cans all over the front yard of the church. As President, I was forced to make a formal apology to the congregation during the annoucements portion of the following Sunday service.

Although, I never knew who brought the beer or who drank it-- I had snuck out with the Vice-President and the Treasurer to go to the Midnight Movie-- Rocky Horror was showing!

In 1982, me and several friends of mine joined together with some of our parents and created a group known as "Pass It On- Teens Encounter Christ" (PIO TEC). Our plan was to have a three day retreat- gathering about 50 teenagers, a few clergy and a team of adults to keep an eye on us for three days. We had a retreat 4 times a year, once a quarter. Teens would be assigned different topics to talk about concerning Christ. We were all Lutheran, so we would learn more and more about Lutheranism each time, as well as other religions. It was very succesful, and often moving. After a couple of years, we joined with some people in Florida and started Sunshine TEC. I only attended a couple of their retreats, because of the distance and travel expenses.

I got an e-mail today from a friend of mine that helped me plan TEC #1. We lost touch decades ago, so I don't know how she got my e-mail address, unless she did a little searching! Anyway, she wanted to let me know that on Labor Day weekend, PIO TEC #95 will take place. I didn't even know it was still going on! It's still the same format- 50 kids get to participate at each session. That makes 4750 teens that have followed in my footsteps since those early days of planning the first retreat.

I just think it's amazing how many lives you can touch and not even realize it.