Dow charges youth to worship radically

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During the July 2 youth worship, Pastor Leonard Dow described a missed opportunity that he regrets to this day.















Philadelphia pastor Leonard Dow speaks to the youth on July 2. Photo by Anna Groff.

While in South Africa with a Mennonite Central Committee learning tour, Dow regularly observed a group of Christians dressed in white and singing in Zulu, cleanse themselves in the ocean daily. On his final day he felt the Spirit prompting him to join them at the water's edge. When he walked forward, a man asked him, "Do you want to be cleansed?"

Dow said everything in his wanted to say "yes," but as the man reached out, Dow said "no."

"I had no problem working for God," he said, but he could not bring himself to simply go before God on his knees in the water.

Leonard Dow, former banker and now pastor at Oxford Circle Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, said young people also need "unconditional rest."

"Not sleeping in until noon, but rest in spirit," he said, especially as modern technology offers the "world at your fingertips." Dow warned of sexually explicit material, violent images, bullying, materialism, militarism and more on the internet.

Dow encouraged the youth to be like Mary in John 12 who washed Jesus feet with perfume and her hair. "Mary had a lot on her shoulders," he said, "But her response was the worship Lord."

He challenged them to remove earbuds and silence their cell phones to refocus on God, as he acknowledged that even a youth convention can be a distraction.

"When it's all said and done, it's about our Lord," he said. He challenged the youth to "not only be radical in our work but radical in our worship" and invited them to say their prayers out loud.

The service ended with the youth depositing the mirrors they received with their fears written on them from the previous worship at recepticles in the front of the stadium.

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