I saw the announcement for the Walk Team in the bulletin of the Baptist church my daughter and I have been attending since moving to Charlotte. I called to inquire about it the next day, and was hooked.

The ministry’s goal: participate in fundraising walks to help raise money for local charities. Members are urged to seek donations from others or to make donations themselves. In the process,  the charities get needed money and walk or run participants get a workout.

My 15-year-old daughter has been tagging along. Our first walk was a three-mile circuit inside an outlet mall that attracted several hundred people to raise money to fight muscular dystrophy. It wasn’t exactly a scenic route, but we enjoyed brisk window shopping. Our second walk similarly was three miles, this time for juvenile diabetes research. It was held at an area amusement park. Upcoming events include fundraising for the March of Dimes in a walk through the center city and a walk along a greenway to help fund work with AIDS patients.

Through my involvement with the Walk Team I’ve met other walkers  who  are interested in getting together and walking other times. I’m also getting better acquainted with Charlotte. Nearly 10 years ago, I participated in my first walk,  a three-day, 60 mile trek from Frederick, Maryland to Washington, D.C. to raise money for breast cancer research. It was a grueling but exhilarating experience.

Check out the fundraising walks in your community and walk for a purpose. It’s almost like eating potato chips. You won’t be able to participate in one and then stop.

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I haven’t eaten honey buns for many years but my daughter loves the sugary, icing-topped  pastry. She enjoys them as a special treat and I encourage her not to eat them too often. Yesterday,  she had a honey bun attack.

While waiting for the afternoon school bus, my daughter had an urge to eat something sweet so she stopped by a vending machine at her high school, thoughts of tasty honey buns dancing in her head. “I pulled out a dollar and put it in the machine,” she said. “I really wanted a honey bun. Then, I thought about Lent and my promise to make a sacrifice.”  She pressed the change return button.

“Mom,” she said, laughing, “I know people were looking at me. I was holding onto that machine like I was never going to let it go.”  When she finally moved away, a boy in line behind her bought – you guessed it – a honey bun.  ”I followed him,”  she howled,  ”and when he opened up the honey bun I was sniffing the air to smell it.”  She even did a re-enactment.

I’m still chuckling.  I’m so proud of my 15-year-old daughter for understanding her personal commitment to God, and the significance of Lent as a time of self-denial, prayer and charity

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She returned from a weekend church youth group retreat, smiling and bubbling with stories. She talked and talked, about her new friends, the Bible study, the group discussions and the singing. In the midst of recounting the events, my 15-year-old turned to me and said, “Mom, I realized that I had not been connecting with God.”

What a powerful spiritual awakening. I looked at her in awe and admiration, silently giving thanks. She is on her journey toward a stronger faith.

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Both my daughter and I were partly drawn to the Baptist church by the strength of its youth program. There’s a separate youth service that the teenagers crowd into on Sundays as well as other opportunities for study and participation in church ministries.

My mother also encouraged my involvement in the youth activities at the Methodist church our family attended. There were rap sessions with the ministers, prayer time, hot-dog sales to raise money for charity, good times with friends and Saturday-afternoon choir rehearsals. Those days marked the planting of the seeds of my faith.

We all think about what we want our children to be when they become adults. My prayer is simple. I want my daughter to first be a woman with faith and compassion. I’m doing what I can to make sure she’s on the path to developing a long and deep spiritual relationship.

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I joined the Baptist church we attended in the Washington area more than 16 years ago, claiming it after almost three years of visiting churches of different faiths. I grew up in the Methodist faith but wanted to explore other theologies. A neighbor introduced me to the church and it became a significant part of my life. It was also the place where my daughter was christened and baptized, where she participated in a girl’s character training program and with the Girl Scouts. 

There’s no easy way to define how we pick our places of worship. It’s certainly a combination of things: the minister, the music, the people, the focus on the Bible, the ministries and the church mission. Both my daughter and I know that we can’t recreate our old experience but as we’re searching for our new church it’s challenging to forego making comparisons. We’re praying to keep an open heart.

A few weeks ago, we were invited to attend church with a college friend. It’s one of the largest in the city –I tend to lean toward smaller congregations – and has a very active ministry. On our way home, my daughter asked to return the next Sunday; she had really liked the separate service for the teenagers. 

We’ve been back and will visit there for a while.

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Her expression of faith is quiet but it has been solid and visible in how she has lived and helped guide our family. She and my father grew up in small rural churches and sought that same kind of intimacy and fellowship when they became parents and moved to the city. 

They became rooted in a Methodist church where most members were part of a dozen or so family groups and where they could serve actively in church ministries. That meant, of course, that we four daughters attended Sunday school and participated in various youth programs. I still remember fondly the years when Miss Baker, one of the three Baker sisters who were church members, worked tirelessly as the youth leader, organizing all sorts of interesting events. 

I hadn’t focused much on my mother’s access to spiritual nourishment through her church community until I recently moved back to North Carolina. It’s a sensitive issue for religious seniors who have long-term health problems and one that churches and other religious institutions deal with in different ways.  The minister at my mother’s church visits her regularly and church members routinely call or stop by. 

Then something happened a few weeks ago and I realized that the way the church had been interacting with the sick and shut-ins just wasn’t enough. They had figured it out too. One Sunday afternoon the minister, who usually came alone, brought five church members by to see my Mom. She told me she was puzzled at first by this crowd pulling up in front of her house. By the time they left, she said, “We had had church.” 

They sang songs, read scripture and prayed, bringing with them the joy that comes from worshiping in a group. My Mom had missed this kind of fellowship and said she is looking forward to next visit. Are your aging parents being spiritually nourished? 

 To read more about faith and religion, read Yvonne Lamb’s blog Soul Rhythms.

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