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You’re standing in a hallway; your destination is closeness with God. You walk forward around blind turns, sometimes at your own pace, sometimes at the pace of others in front of you that you feel are holding you back, or at the pace of those behind you are trying to rush you. There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to the path as it curves inward and outward. You are in a labyrinth in Lancaster Pennsylvania, preparing for a journey and getting to know those who will accompany you. The slow process of turning strangers into friends takes great leaps forward as you converse through the short night it takes to traverse the North Atlantic. You’re now in London. You take a day to get acquainted and see only a fraction of what this cultural melting pot has to offer. Monuments built ages ago, Green parks, big business, and the people all thrown together into this timeless city. Is god here?? In a pub?? Behind the palace gates?? In the tower?? Your not to sure yet. The question is one you meditate on, throughout the journey. In the meantime you’ve been given an assignment by JonnyBaker, a man on the forefront of Alternative worship, who runs a worship Nightclub, called Grace in London. He sends your group to the Tate Modern Museum of art, a place well known for the controversies that often surround what they consider to be art. Are assignment is to see Bill Viola’s five angels for the Millennium and think deeply about God and his presence in this piece of art. The piece consists of five screens in a dark room playing different looping videos of different color rippling water which opens up to reveal a human body which flies out of the water. The body is positioned like Jesus on the cross during the crucifixion. The body positioning is what your group determines to be God in this work of art. When you finally meet Jonny Baker the next day, he starts promptly by asking what you think about the exhibit. Everyone responds with the same general idea about how the art resembles the crucifixion. Jonny looks upset. He declares that we aren’t being deep enough in our thinking and our being plain lazy. You feel like the disciples after Jesus has revealed something significant to you, but you have failed to grasp it and are afraid to dig any deeper. Over the next two days, Jonny shows you some of the most amazing things and concepts you’ve ever seen or heard of in regards to worship. You go through an online labyrinth and experience worship where technology is used to fully integrate all of your senses into worship. Your mind is racing taking in all that you have learned as you think of so many ways this could revolutionize your home church. You’re on the Underground to Heathrow. Battling through the British airways strike, you make your plane and are in Glasgow after 45 minutes. You look down at your watch and are shocked to see it is 10:30 PM with the sun still high in the sky. This is certainly a work of God. Your group decides to take a quick nighttime walk through Glasgow to see what’s there. The sun is rapidly setting. You round a corner and find yourself on a street in the middle of a Bachellorette party leaving a local bar. People are drunk and loud so your advisors make you walk quickly through this scene, and you are forced to decline the "10 Euros to kiss the bride" offer made one of the party goers. You pass an all night disco where a women passes out balloons that are good for a free drink. A man snatches the balloons out of her hands and lets them go into the sky. Across the street your group witnesses a mugging and a chase. Drunken people line the streets and begin to yell curses at your group. You are seriously beginning to think this walk was a real mistake, when you round the corner and finally arrive back at the Holiday Inn Express, safe and sound. You realize this was not a mistake during a group discussion you have back at the hotel, you begin to think about god in this place, opening your mind you see the woman giving out free balloons as a possible representation of God who gives us free gifts and the drunken man as a symbol of the ordinary person who snatches and then wastes the gifts he has been given in pursuit of other goals. A good night’s sleep and several bus and ferry rides through the countryside of Scotland later you find yourself on the Isle of Iona. It is beautiful. God is in every aspect of this Island, from its history, to the large Celtic crosses from the eight century, and the flocks of sheep who roam the island freely. During tea in the Common room of the Macleod center you begin to meet the 80 other youth who will join you on this leg from allover the UK and some from the US and Poland. Over the next five days you come to know these people closely as good friends as you participate in activities ranging from participating in a Ceilidh, which is traditional Scottish dancing, to a refugee simulation where your eyes are opened to the difficulties and hardships of seeking asylum and escaping poverty. Throughout the experience you are all bound together by the common tie of worship and experience how worship and god work in community life and just how strong it can strengthen community. Swimming in the frigid waters of the North Sea, off of St. Columba’s bay is the coldest you’ve ever been. You make a note not to accept dares from Scottish people anymore. The beauty of Iona and neighboring Island to the North, Staffa is unsurpassed. The around the Island pilgrimage you take is worth braving the 50 degree wind driven rain. The puffins on the Island of Staffa are more than enough compensation for the hour spent sliding back and forth across the small tourist boat you take to get there. You are excited to be allowed to serve communion at the Sunday worship on the abbey. Taking communion first you are surprised at the suspicious strength of their grape juice. Amongst the most interesting aspects of worship in the abbey is that there is no music in the hymnals, just the words to the songs. The music director, Emily spends the first ten minutes of service teaching the music to the congregation until we sound at least presentable. You chuckle to yourself as you picture John Touchton attempting this at CCC every Sunday. You leave Iona with new friends and email addresses to keep in touch with those a world away, but more importantly you leave with a new and deeper understanding of God in community and the value of God in small things as well as the ancient and large.

Back to London. You are nearing the end of your journey. With one day your group’s agenda is full. You briefly split into two rival factions, the women are off to Harrods, while no man can resist the lure of the worlds biggest toy store!! You know you have been changed by this experience as even surrounded by the awe of Hamley’s you are still looking for and finding God everywhere. The last evening in London, brings you to a tour of the Episcopal Church headquarters adjacent to Westminster Abbey and you sit in the Archbishops chair. Comfy, you think, but still no lazy boy. You take a guided tour the abbey and participate in an Evensong service, which after Jonny Baker and Iona seems a tad bit conservative, possibly boring, but none the less, a good place to find God. After the Evensong your group lucks out after scoring some discount tickets to Les Miserables at the Palace theatre. Broadway with a British accent is kinda interesting. You have a spare moment before you collapse from exhaustion and decide to dash of a postcard to CCC even though you probably arrive home before it gets there. You will later be heartbroken once you realize you sent it to "9585 Colesville road, not 9525, even though you could swear this used to be 9585!! This leg of your spiritual journey comes to a close, but its effect on you never will. As you descend into Newark airport, slowly comeback to reality as you listen to the baby behind you cry for the entire seven hour flight, and feel the hassle of US customs and find out that your baggage has been temporarily misplaced, and you have lossed the keys to your luggage.

Well I hope you everyone enjoyed our journey. I invite everyone to do two things. First please stop and see some of "our" pictures from Iona and London after the service, and I invite you all to go home and journal on God in your everyday life and how you can open your mind to find God in places, most unexpected. I would like to close with the responsive reading "Doors" that is printed in the bulletin.

The kingdom of God has many points of entry, but not always in the places we expect.
So we need to be alert and ready to enter any time, any place we may be called.
We will enter the kingdom through the door marked ‘push’
We will not give up if it doesn’t open easily.

We will enter the kingdom through the door marked ‘changing room’.
We will not attempt spiritual exercise in clothes that limit our movements.

We will enter the kingdom through the door marked ‘fire escape’
We will not go back into smoke-filled rooms to rescue our possessions.

We will enter the kingdom through the door marked ‘late night opening and all day Sundays’.
We will not restrict the times and places of access to God.

We will enter the kingdom through the door marked ‘Silence-recording in progress’.
We will not miss our part in God’s symphony.

We will enter the kingdom through the door marked ‘bar staff only’
We will not ignore people who are thirsty.

We will enter the kingdom through the door marked ‘honeymoon suite’
We will not keep any part of ourselves from God’s love.

We will enter the kingdom through the door marked ‘to the cells’
We will not plea-bargain to escape responsibility for our crimes.

We will enter the kingdom through the door marked ‘lost property’
We will not get rid of the people who have not yet been claimed by their rightful owner.

We will enter the kingdom through the door marked ‘guest list’
We will not have forgotten to have our friends names put on it too.

We will enter the kingdom through the door marked ‘exit’
We will not continue shopping while the manager puts the lights out.

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