Salt & Light

Because I work every Sunday in the church, Thursday is my Friday. And I'm sure looking forward to two days off. I have a lot of things I need to do around the house and in my personal time. Like everyone else I never seem like I have enough hours in the day to get everything accomplished.

My job is actually two jobs in the same nonprofit organization -- pastor and public relations director. The workload for each job should easily warrant two full-time employees, but that's not going to happen given our current budget woes. So quite often I find myself working from crisis to crisis without ever getting to some of the not-time-sensitive items on my wish list. But today I did something very uncharacteristic. I chucked the phone calls, my email inbox, and the to-do list to follow up on something I've wanted to do for a long time: organize a voter registration drive.

My church spends approximately 75% of its efforts working with young people. I am continually impressed by their enthusiasm and dreams. Young people at my church deliver food baskets at Thanksgiving, help organize a massive Christmas effort, work at camp with inner city kids, and generally do a lot of amazing things. These aren't young people who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, but people who have overcome great obstacles in their growing up. A few months ago I was talking with some of them about current events and it was great to hear their opinions on politics. I discovered they weren't registered to vote and didn't know how to go about the process. I always intended to follow up with them about that, but it just became yet another thing that fell through the cracks of my hectic schedule.

But something inside me broke this morning as I listened to the morning news. I can't sit around and be passive while the entire world goes to hell. So I decided to organize a voter registration drive. My first call was to the Chautauqua County Board of Elections, and my second to the League of Women Voters. Everyone was so helpful. I discovered that the process is insanely easy -- anyone can organize a voter registration drive.

I hope to get this on the calendar before high school gets out. I'm also seeking a few high school students to get the word out via posters and the internet. Yeah, I know I have a lot more important stuff to do, like paperwork, but if I don't help these young people get involved in the political process, who will?

A lot of churches give lip service to teens and always say that "young people are the church of tomorrow." But my wife and I prefer to look on them as the church of today. I guess the voter registration drive applies that opinion to the political process. I can't wait to see how this turns out!