The Peace of Me // A Christmas Art Exhibition

So as some of you may know by now I am a youth worker at a church. I think a lot of people think they know what a youth worker does. And before I became one I thought I knew too. But man is this job varied.

As I type I am sitting in a room usually filled with sofas and chairs and tables which we as a youth work team have completely transformed for a youth art exhibition.

Over the past few weeks we have worked with the young people to create things for this exhibition. We have 3 videos, a poem and a huge stable installation that we made with the young people. It's truly incredible. (Can you tell I'm proud?)

The whole idea of the exhibition is the idea that if Jesus is the peace of the world where is the peace?

It's an interesting concept isn't it? As a Christian I believe that Jesus is the prince of peace. And Jesus came to Earth to make this a reality. So where is the peace? I don't think anyone could really say that the world is a peaceful place.

We've been encouraging people coming to the exhibition to write down answers to the question "where's the peace in..."

It's a question with no answer. It's a cry out for peace where there is none.

I thought I would also share with you some of the answers that people have anonymously given.

Where's the peace in...

Alcoholism

School

Broken Families

Cancer

War

This is by no means meant to be depressing. I guess it is a bit.

But also in the exhibition there are three videos. Two describing two stories of people from our church who have gone through some incredibly tough times. They spend the videos describing how even during a time when nobody would expect there to be peace they found that. They talk about how they found that and how Jesus truly was for them the Prince of Peace. So there's the hope. Real people talking about real events and the peace they found in those awful times.

So this Christmas I truly pray that any of you who find this time of year hard every year or maybe just this year seems like it's going to be an impossible time would find some peace. In whatever form that comes in.

So peace out,

Kate // SK