Providing vital Christian resources from the YMCA past and present to nourish inclusive, equitable work in our diverse and global neighborhoods that build up healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
In those moments, when as a YMCA leader you feel overwhelmed, adrift, lost in your spirit, alone in your anxiety, yearning to have the lifelessness of your Y transformed into vibrant energy – this prayer of Kierkegaard is for you.
“Father in heaven, let your voice come to me, be heard by me, even though it overtake me where I live secluded and alone.
You, my Lord Jesus Christ, you who came into the world to save those who were lost, look for me even in my errors where I hide myself from you and from others; let me hear your voice, let me know and follow it.
You, O Holy Spirit, breathe for me in inexpressible sighs, bring life to me though I am a barren tree.
You who bears again to life those who are already dead, you who gives youth to the aged, create in me a new heart.
You who with motherly care protects everything in which there is a spark of life, send forth the growth that you would have for me.”
based on/adapted from “The Prayers of Kierkegaard,” no 47 by Ole Anthony
Using our YMCA Core Values to stir up our spirit and mind, to rattle us and convict us, to encourage and guide us, authenticity is more about responsible honesty than unencumbered identity-declarations, about caring for ourself and others in a mutually respectful way.
Our authenticity ought to stimulate not just boundaries on who we think we are, but humility about who we really are, which includes the darkness alongside the light, the good and evil intertwined within us, the beautiful and ugly that is us.
In the YMCA our leadership is often defined by our character, our programs are successful when stories emerge of how the character-building emphasis worked; as my friend Dave at the Parkview Family YMCA quips: “transformed people transform people.”
Spiritual authenticity is more than just declaring what you believe about spirituality and expecting respect for it, it’s actually being honest and responsible for your own spirit, it’s health, and how it is doing in reality, in real life.
It’s about taking responsibility for the health of your spirit and doing the work so that it grows in its capacity to care for all in a mutually respectful way.
Authentic spirituality which doesn’t expand in its capacity to love is just a clanging gong or clashing symbols out of tune with reality.
At the YMCA, when we are authentic about our origins, about our motivations for why we got started, about the foundation we build on, about the roots which nourish our growth, it also requires honesty about the failures and hurts that have come through the YMCA. not just institutionally, but personally – the Y is all about people and building a healthy spirit, mind and body for all using Christian principles in practical ways. And for all the times we get it right, someone can point to ways we didn’t.
In those moments, when as a YMCA leader you feel authentically overwhelmed, adrift, lost in your spirit, alone in your anxiety, yearning to have the lifelessness of your Y transformed into vibrant energy – this prayer of Kierkegaard is for you.
He was writing in Denmark around the time George Williams was launching the Y.M.C.A. in England, and though his writings weren’t that popular when the Paris Basis was being crafted, Kierkegaard was “discovered” after the horrific tumult of the Great War, which was a shining moment for the Y, but also a dying of the world’s hope for peace in the world.
The Holocaust, the Atomic Bomb, the Cold War, global terrorism, genocides – this reality of YMCA members around the world ought to still way heavy on all Y members – in solidarity – and in accord with the prayer of Jesus in John 17:21 “that they all may be one.”
This means not just in our salvation and reconciliation but also in our empathy and practical actions of love.
And in that suffering is when we too often (if we quit avoiding this stark and disturbing reality) feel lost, in error, and without life. This is why the writings of Kierkegaard and his prayers continue to be sought out, for he seeks to get at the real, our actual lived existence, us, me, I – known and loved by God.
Maybe everything is fine for you in your life and family, your YMCA branch members and staff; but if we were going to be authentic, it’s not all we hope and pray for…yet; in the meantime keep honestly praying to the Lord, in humility and openness, like this prayer of Kierkegaard:
“Father in heaven, let your voice come to me, be heard by me, even though it overtake me where I live secluded and alone.
You, my Lord Jesus Christ, you who came into the world to save those who were lost, look for me even in my errors where I hide myself from you and from others; let me hear your voice, let me know and follow it.
You, O Holy Spirit, breathe for me in inexpressible sighs, bring life to me though I am a barren tree.
You who bears again to life those who are already dead, you who gives youth to the aged, create in me a new heart.
You who with motherly care protects everything in which there is a spark of life, send forth the growth that you would have for me.”
based on/adapted from “The Prayers of Kierkegaard,” no 47 by Ole Anthony
May the Grace and Peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
While the original “C” was thin – 1840’s British Protestant Evangelical White Young Male – these followers of Jesus took to heart his prayer in John 17:21 and embodied it throughout the world; their willingness to expand the depth, diversity and richness of the “C” thickened it, giving it more weight, more room for unity, and more dimensions of reality.
What can this mean for how you embody the “C” in the YMCA?
Our YMCA mission seems to embody a tension between practicing Christian principles and being for all; yet a historical overview shows a progression, an expansion, a richness, of inclusion.
Not perfect, obviously; a struggle for sure – one that we in the Y get to joyfully and humbly participate in for our generation.
This summary paragraph below comes in the middle of an extensive yet readable dissertation exploring the global influence of the YMCA Paris Basis from 1855 to 1955 – a century of stunning innovations, horrific trauma, courageous love.
At one level it lays out how Faith has been a dynamic and crucial Dimension of Diversity.
It highlights significant historical realities regarding the “C” in the YMCA striding forward into new countries and cultures, new generations, new opportunities.
By remembering our past, our roots, we can more wisely discern what we’ve been nourished with in order to stay engaged as healers and bridge-builders in the way of Christ amidst our present realities.
“The YMCA was a fruit of the Evangelical Revival of the 19th century.
Contrary to several other revival movements, which were separatistic, the YMCA idea was based on a sense of unity among Christians.
This led the YMCA to co-operate – often lead – with the major streams in the Ecumenical Movement of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The YMCA leaders were active in the Evangelical Alliance and Sunday School Movement; they were in the spearhead of the Muscular Christianity and student awakenings; they were inspired by the Social Gospel movement; they led the first meetings of Missionary Movement and the World Council of Churches.
Although the YMCA was Protestant in origin, it also adapted itself to Orthodox and Roman Catholic contexts.
In general, the attitude of Protestant and Orthodox church leaders was positive, while that of Catholics was negative.
In all different religious contexts, the YMCA aimed to lead youth to their respective churches.
Extending out of Europe and North America, the YMCA faced new problems and sought answers to them.
The area that had, along with the two ‘Christian continents’, the most profound effect on the mission view of the YMCA, was Asia.
In the Near East, the YMCA faced Islam and in India, it faced Hinduism and Buddhism.
In both contexts, the movement took the lead in interfaith dialogue with these world religions.
Additionally, in India, the YMCA faced the problems of rural youth – and aimed to adapt itself to their needs.”
How does this expansionist, diverse, “thick C” inspire you?
While the original “C” was thin – 1840’s British Protestant Evangelical White Male – these followers of Jesus took to heart his prayer in John 17:21 and embodied it throughout the world; their willingness to expand the depth, diversity and richness of the “C” thickened it, giving it more weight, more room for unity, and more dimensions of reality.
What can this mean for how you embody the “C” in the YMCA?
With a dynamic and inclusive legacy like ours, who can you be building a bridge of friendship with through your faith, hope and love in Jesus?
Readable and thorough overview with brilliant summaries for inspiring reflections. Click pic to download the PDF.
“For all” is a key part of our YMCA mission, and for Christians in the Y we can do our part as the welcoming hands and hospitable heart of Jesus, motivated to do our part in our decades to be ones who unite – and be part of the transformative answer to Christ’s prayer “that they may all be one.”
It’s a week where we are reflecting on the devastating impact of 9/11 on America and the world, and a sentiment that arises is the remembrance of unity that emerged from the chaos.
That moment of unity was costly, but the experience of it lingers in our national memory, the yearning still clings to our conscience.
Many of us ask the question in some form: how can we be united like that again, but without the destructive evil to prompt it?
For Christians in the USA who reflect on those moments of unity as our country came together, many of us thought of the call Christ Jesus placed upon his disciples.
The unity that America experienced for a few moments after 9/11 is a kind of unity that Jesus prays for – in particular for all who will believe in him throughout each generation in every nation.
Christians yearn for unity among one another in our local congregations, city churches, national denominations, historic branches across the globe.
Jesus prays for unity, “that they may all be one” – and it seems like we are still waiting for this prayer to get answered.
This yearning for Christian unity was desired greatly in the 1840’s during which the YMCA was formed by George Williams and his eleven friends.
The Paris Basis of the 1855 World YMCA Alliance is a practical statement striving to embody this prayer of Jesus for local YMCA’s that desire to be in harmonious relations with Y’s across their countries and the world.
This prayer of Jesus, for awhile, was included in the 1896 logo of the Y, the reference of it – John 17:21 – was printed upon an open Bible, in the middle of a triangle, behind which was a double circle and the Chi Rho symbol.
The current bylaws of many US YMCAs includes explicit commitment to the inclusive and uniting principles of Christ, with an expectation that it would not only shape individual personalities to imitate Jesus’ style of fellowship, but it would influence whole societies.
The Young Men’s Christian Association we regard as being in its essential genius a worldwide fellowship united by a common loyalty to Jesus Christ for the purpose of developing Christian personality and building a Christian society.
The present mission of the Y masterfully condenses the soul of Jesus’ prayer, the heart of the Paris Basis, and the essence of the bylaws in their mission statement: to put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
In the life of the Y these days there are crucial conversations around the relevance and connection of “Christian principles” to being “for all” in our mission.
For complex and sometimes ambiguous reasons there is resistance or confusion to the meaning of “Christian principles” in our mission; and others have a similar uncertain take on being “for all.”
It seems to me like it’s worth remembering honestly where we came from, to tell those stories responsibly, to respect those that made it possible in the past for the Y to be here today, and to care enough to pass it on to the next generation even better than when we came into it – that can be a helpful to build up healthy connections between “Christian principles” and being “for all.”
Again, for complex reasons, the “C” in our name has been downplayed in many of our official YMCA branding and historical accounts, a form of interpretation about our context.
Based on observation, it does seem like there is an awkwardness and uncomfortableness publicly talking about the “C” in the YMCA in our movement, which is shaped in various ways by our pluralistic, secular, multi-cultural, multi-faith communities.
And, with the division that has exponentially increased between Christians in the past 200 years, it complicates communication between them in the Y – thus if they talk past each other, or down to those who are different in their following of Christ, how can they speak with united confidence among those who don’t believe in Jesus like them?
One of the elephants in the YMCA room is the uncomfortableness Christians have talking about their own faith – especially with other Christians who believe differently.
If you don’t believe the Y is a safe place to talk about what you believe, then the Y squelches most kinds of Christianity and by default let’s a vague version emerge that might be “safe” but also barely meaningful.
What’s your take on Christians who believe differently than you?
Imagine how Jesus feels when he looks around the world at all the different Christians… is he clicking his tongue, slapping his forehead, rolling his eyes at the diversity of his disciples?
No.
When you read this part of Jesus’ prayer for disciples in the generations to come, there is nothing narrow-minded or small-hearted about it:
My prayer is not for them alone.
I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.
May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.
Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
It’s a beautiful, bold, compelling, visionary prayer that, to be frank, we are yearning still for Jesus to fulfill.
This prayer of Jesus was a fueling element for the posture of the YMCA towards different kinds of Christian men they let join and lead in the Y.
For anyone who wants a stronger “C” in the YMCA, it includes ecumenical acceptance of the diverse “C” that’s always been true of us – the fruit of this being God’s love for the world being made known.
The movement started with boundaries, like all must; but the Y kept expanding it through the decades – in London, through the British Isles, then Europe and eventually five more continents.
Eventually they let all the Protestant into the Y, despite some internal protesting; then they let in the Catholics and Orthodox – this ought not to be assumed as natural, but rather a striving based on rigorous efforts and prayer.
This same posture led the Y to take the momentous step of letting in their Jewish and Muslim friends, and eventually they would drop all religious requirements for membership and leadership.
When someone joins the Y, whatever kind of Christian they might be, whatever kind of religious conviction you may or may not hold, there is no denying the truth of the ground and roots which nourish the global YMCA movement.
It is inauthentic of the Y to downplay the religious history of the Y, to shy away from the explicit Christian heart of the Y – it makes our movement less interesting, less compelling, less transformative.
It’s okay to honestly say that it is more complicated now, that there is uncertainty on what to do with religions in the Y, and Christianity in particular.
In light of the religious upheavals we are experiencing globally, no surprise that the Y is also caught up in it.
And the violence that is done in the name of religion is reprehensible. Always.
The solution, though, is not to squelch religion, to ban it or ignore it as a way to stem violence.
People are violent.
Religion can be used as a wise and healing tool in the face of violence, or it can be wielded to destroy with it.
If the goal is to find ways to transform violent people into peacemakers, and if those people are religious, we ought to seek ways to use their religious traditions to fuel ways of reconciliation instead of killing each other.
The YMCA sought to do this in its first hundred years, embodied among many leaders, in particular through the life’s work of John Mott, who is considered the Ecumenical Statesman of the 20th century, and who won a Nobel Peace prize for his war relief work.
With a religious YMCA legacy like that, we have an opportunity now to learn from and draw on this part of our history to foment religious reconciliation as part of our peacemaking, of forging just mercy in our violent communities.
Jesus’ prayer is our prayer, for those that believe in him, which is what then shapes our posture towards one another and the world.
When Christians seek oneness with one another, through Jesus, we end up demonstrating a healing and resonant love for the world.
Within the Orthodox Christian community, which John Mott highly respected, is the word “theosis” to describe the oneness in Jesus’ prayer.
Jesus prays that we would be one with each other and with God like Jesus himself is: this is theosis – a kind of healing communion where we experience the transforming joy of God’s reconciling presence in spirit, mind and body.
Thanks to the rigorous studies by Christian missionaries, we now realize that so much of the Christian division in the world is largely due to complex cultural differences, generational differences (often tied to immigrant communities), and sometimes violent socio-economic differences.
Of course the divisive Seven Deadly Sins are always at work, like entropy, pulling people apart in spirit, mind and body – and these must honestly and care-fully be confronted in a community, no matter what they are going through.
But to miss the larger forces at work is to misattribute to individuals what is happening on a massive scale to millions of individuals- thus being blind to trends which we can learn from, and then miss out on ways to give people more wisdom and truth on how to overcome cultural, generational and social-economic differences with grace.
When reflecting on how expansive, how inclusive, how global, how radical is the mercy of God, of how patient and kind Jesus is in answering his prayer these past twenty centuries, we can exclaim like St. Paul:
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
The unity that Christians yearn and strive for is a vision of the future which God is mysteriously and faithfully fulfilling in the world as it really is.
It becomes a matter of faith, of trust, that God is the source, the means, and the purpose of unity, that it is marked by mercy, faithfulness, wisdom, mystery, and glory.
Did Jesus know when he prayed for unity in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal that twenty centuries later we’d still be missing the mark?
Whatever Jesus knew, he wasn’t naive, nor a quitter – rather, motivated by a sacrificial love, an enduring joy, and a glorious hope that God will someday, someway answer his prayer for unity.
This prayer of Jesus, this desire for theosis, this yearning for transforming unity with God and others – past, present, future – it’s part of why the Y was formed, and in part why it has endured, adapted, matured, and kept moving forward, even if it has stumbled along the way.
“For all” is a key part of our YMCA mission, and for Christians in the Y we can do our part as the welcoming hands and hospitable heart of Jesus, motivated to do our part in our decades to be ones who unite – and be part of the transformative answer to Christ’s prayer “that they may all be one.”
