03/14/2008

Young Adults Serve in Kirtland, Ohio

(Left to right) Barbara, Margaret, Lyle, and Craig

In the 1830s, young adults responded to a call to build sacred community. They would build the first human-made sacred space of our faith movement—in Kirtland, Ohio. It is sacred space where some of our earliest expressions of ministries of reconciliation, healing, justice, and peace were lived out.
Today Kirtland continues to be a place where young adults and others encounter the transforming spirit of the One who calls us to become “a people of the Temple—those who see violence but proclaim peace, who feel conflict yet extend the hand of reconciliation, who encounter broken spirits and find pathways for healing” (Doctrine and Covenants 161:2a).

I had no idea the impact that temple would have on my life when I arrived in 2002. The ministries of the temple intrigued me. When offered the opportunity to return in 2004 as a spiritual formation fellow, I readily accepted. I became more aware of the need for the reconciling ministry that takes place through the sharing of the sacred. I also started to form an understanding of my calling to be a “minister of the temple, of sacrament, and of peace” in and with a community called to live and share the peace of Christ.

Rather than return to Seattle, I accepted the opportunity to study at a seminary in Ohio after a year off from theological studies. Today I volunteer at the Kirtland Temple and the Eastern Great Lakes Mission Center. For the past four years, Margaret Rastle has taken an active role in the Mercantile, the museum store. She was drawn to Kirtland as a place to explore and contemplate her next professional step after graduation. Craig Webb has returned to Kirtland as a student for the past three summers. Following graduation, he continued his fellowship, taking time to research. Barbara Walden brings vital insight, leadership, and ministry to those who serve and visit the House of the Lord.
Together these young adults and others form community where the peace of Christ is present, the love of the eternal is experienced, and the Spirit comforts as we struggle together to respond to what it means to be the Community of Christ, enlightened by the story of those who came before. As part of that struggle, we are starting to use the Spiritual Formation Center, with the formation of new ministries and recasting of old.
I invite all young adults (and others) to consider the possibility of volunteering at the House of the Lord and other locations where your vision and dedication to our call as a prophetic people can help transform and heal a broken world.

—Lyle Anderson II reporting