The name

One night, as a group of my students and I were standing in a rain-soaked parking lot, we decided that our youth band needed a name... tonight. We starting brainstorming and recalling all of the "wicked" band names already out there and came to the conclusion that most of the ones we liked were actions, participles if you will. "Casting Crowns," "Counting Crows," "As I Lay Dying," and so on. We decided to use the template.

Lightning was still flashing periodically, and one flash proposed the silhouette of our steeple. I immediately asked the kids if they liked that direction and they ran with it. Ideas started out logically and in the realm of possibility, but as is the case with the younger ages, the suggestions quickly diverged into the rediculous. With an attempt to bring them back, I suggested "Climbing Steeples." We stood in silence for a few moments, and then one of my older students asked, "What does it mean?"

I thought immediately of the Casting Crowns lyric "beneath the shadow of our steeples, all the lost and lonely people," and thought about the powerful image and criticism those words conveyed. I explained to the youth that throughout history, the Church has often times made it harder to reach Christ than it should have been. I showed them the irony of lifting the cross high off the ground. Jesus came to reach the people... and we take the symbol of His sacrifice and push it back up to heaven, spending churchgoers' money to do it. I quickly made sure to stress the importance of respecting and honoring Christ's sacrifice, but at the same time i also ensured they understood the meaning of that sacrifice: to bring us into closer, more intimate relationship with Him.

Thus we climb the steeple: grasping at the cross but hindered by the world.

In the words of Jim Halpert: "Lord, beer us strength."