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By Erika Anderson, Staff Writer
ROSWELL—It is a chilly Tuesday night, but inside Blessed
Trinity High School, the fire is undeniable.
The atmosphere here rivals a small concert. There’s a light
show, giant video screen, and the pulsating rhythms of a full band, led by Ed
Bolduc, Life Teen music minister at St. Ann’s Church, Marietta. Plus,
there’s a crowd of enthusiastic participants. But instead of cheering and
applauding their favorite boy band, these teens are here to be in the presence
of God.
It is here, each Tuesday since it began Oct. 2, that teens, their
youth ministers, who are young adults, and Life Teen core members have gathered
together for Exalt, a dynamic ministry that speaks to teens in their own
language.
XLT as it is called, is the brainchild of many people,
particularly Father Tim Hepburn, chaplain at Blessed Trinity High School, Randy
Raus, national director of Life Teen, and Paul George, Southeast regional
director of Life Teen. The title comes from Isaiah 33:5: “The Lord is
exalted, enthroned on high.”
“One thing teens are always asking us is ‘teach us how
to pray,’” Raus said. “I think this is a great way to teach them
how to pray. Sometimes I work the lights and I look out and see all these teens
praying on a Tuesday night and I wonder what they would be doing if they
weren’t here.”
On Nov. 13, teens gathered in the school auditorium for XLT,
leaving behind tests, homework, practices and the stresses of their daily
lives. As Bolduc and his band led the teens in song, the words were projected
in white letters onto a big screen draped behind the band.
“Let’s not let our song be empty,” Bolduc told the
group. “Let’s sing our praise to God.”
Interspersed with the lyrics on the screen, video images
displaying audience members are also projected, much like a sporting event.
“Exalt the name of the Lord—that means we pray,”
Bolduc said. “This is not about what the guy or girl next to you is doing,
it’s about prayer. When we come here on Tuesday nights, it’s not just
to say, ‘God help me with my problems.’ It’s to say, ‘God,
I love you and I thank you for everything you’ve done in my
life.’”
With eyes closed, teens spontaneously raise their hands to heaven
or put their arms around each other. The band leads the teens from high-energy
praise music to spiritually centered ballads, preparing them for the talk of
the evening.
George, dressed in a red fleece sweatshirt and jeans, doesn’t
look much older than his audience, though he is married and the father of a
young daughter. He speaks five words to the teens in a clear voice, repeating
himself twice.
“God is present right now.”
“How many of you want to leave different tonight?” he
asks them, then goes on to read the Gospel for the following Sunday. It is a
confusing Scripture from Luke about the end of the world. But with his gift of
speaking to the teens in their own language, George breaks down the word of
God.
“God is timeless. God knows no time. Hang with me,” he
says. “God looks at your life. He sees one big picture. He just sees
everything at one time. That’s weird. I have to think about that for a
long time. God sees Adam and Eve and me? What?”
George compares the timelessness of God to the mindset of a child,
who knows no time, but only “wakes up, plays, goes to bed, and wakes up
and plays, over and over.”
“I’m talking about the end of the world (in this
Scripture) and I’m trying to tell you that I don’t care,” he
said. “God is concerned where you are right now. Guess what? He’s not
concerned where you are tomorrow. Guess what? He’s not concerned with
where you were yesterday. He’s concerned with where you are right
now.”
“He’s timeless,” he said. “He has no choice
but to be present with us every morning, every time, through the good, the bad
and the ugly. This Scripture is calling us to be present with God right
now.”
George said that as beings in time, humans are often at the mercy
of the clock.
“Being people of time, we always think about it. It consumes
us. When we think of all the time that we spend thinking of what could be or
what could have been, we forget that God is present with us right now,” he
said. “Did you know that your heart can connect with God at every moment
of every day? The timelessness of God as he sees everything can connect with
you right now.”
“God is calling us not to worry about the end of the world,
not to worry about tomorrow, but to worry about where you are right now,”
he said. “Where are you?”
George then walked over to the tabernacle, which was placed on the
stage surrounded by candles.
“That’s what’s so cool about being Catholic. At
each Mass, at each moment on an altar, we experience the timelessness of
God,” he said. “From before this earth was created, to infinity, the
timelessness of heaven reaches down and becomes present at the time we are, in
the form of the Eucharist. Heaven is opening up and touching down to transform
simple bread and wine into the presence of Christ,” he said. “The
challenge for us is to be completely present to him.”
Father Hepburn then brought forth a monstrance holding the
consecrated host. As the band again led into praise music, the light from the
monstrance reflected onto the faces of the audience, like shimmering pools of
light from above. Teens were encouraged to be comfortable, to kneel, to sit,
but to be fully immersed in the real presence of God.
What some have likened to a “retreat” experience, those
who attend XLT are fortunate to have the opportunity to experience every
Tuesday, in the middle of their busy week. Katherine Malone, a teen from St.
Thomas Aquinas Church in Alpharetta comes every week.
“It’s awesome. It’s a time to sing and praise
God,” she said. “My week would be really boring without it. It’s
the highlight of my week.”
Other teens have reaped the benefit Raus was praying for—they
have learned a new way to pray.
Jeff Harbourd, a teen from St. Ann’s, was at XLT for the
first time, having come with a friend.
“I really felt the Holy Spirit,” he said. “It made
me feel closer to God to be able to worship him.”
A parishioner of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Smyrna, high
school sophomore Carolyn Deacon finds that XLT not only benefits her socially,
but spiritually as well.
“I come to sing and hang out with friends and to be with
God,” she said. “I feel so much closer to God. I just feel so much
peace when I leave here. I go back to school knowing that God is on my
side.”
Cooper Van Rossum and Dan Jordan, a sophomore and freshman,
respectively, from St. Brigid Church in Alpharetta, feel they grow spiritually
from time with their peers.
“It’s fun and it’s uplifting,” Jordan said.
“It makes you feel good. There are a lot of people here that are nice and
happy and crazy.”
Van Rossum agrees.
“I enjoy it because it’s like another way to talk to
God. It’s different than church,” he said. “Everyone is really
into it. It makes it easier because you don’t feel stupid.”
Father Hepburn said that though XLT can be a powerful experience
for teens “we are only one-tenth of the way there.”
“Some still see it in a horizontal way, meaning the music,
the video and their friends. That’s good, that’s always part of
it,” he said. “Yet if all they did was come into contact with their
friends, sing some songs, and see some lights and video, and they didn’t
touch God, or lift their spirits up in praise, then we’re missing the
boat.”
Each week Father Hepburn or George gives a talk, usually on the
Scripture readings for the coming Sunday. Father Hepburn said he would love to
see XLT grow to be offered at other parishes and perhaps at Our Lady of Mercy
High School in Fairburn. For now, though, he said that he wants “the
teens’ input and also we really want them to bring their friends.”
“We want them to leave with a sense that they have been in
the presence of God and of people who love them.”
George hopes that the BTHS auditorium will be “filled every
week-full of teens,” in essence, a sell-out crowd for God.
“We want them to have the sense that our church—our
faith—is alive and that they can be a part of it,” he said, adding
that he hopes teens will take the spiritual meal from XLT and, in turn, feed it
to their parishes. “I’d love to see it just really rockin’ to
help teens with their faith.”
For more information about XLT, call (770) 552-8231. |
