By: Janiya Q. Carter Special to the Milwaukee Times
At Mt. Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, Youth Sunday is celebrated every third Sunday; the most recent observance was on Sunday, May 17, 2015. All the young people of the church participate by singing in the choir, praise dancing, or being ushers. We are in charge of the service including devotion. This month the service opened with the choirs singing “Can You Hear Me Now” and for devotion we read chapter 12 verses 7-17. After devotion we had the junior praise dancers. The song they danced to was “He Wants It All” by Forever Jones. The praise dancers did a great job considering some of them learned the dance in one day. We also have senior praise dancers who danced during the 8:00 service. Next was the Angel Choir which is the choir for kids 12 and under. The songs they sang were “Rock” and “Jesus Promised” by Mississippi Mass Choir. Some of the lyrics to rock are “Rock got a piece of the rock, Christ that solid rock.” The next choir was the CVH choir which is for teens and young adults. They sang “Grateful and Your My Prince of Peace” by Michael W. Smith. After that Min. Gloria Hammond preached. The scriptures for the message were Luke 19 verses 1-6. These verses tell the story of Zaccheaus who ran ahead of the crowd to try to see Jesus as He passed through. The point of the sermon from the verses was to help us see why we need Jesus. We need Him because He knows our past, He knows everything about us. We also need Him because we all need friends, even if we don’t think we do. Jesus is a friend who loves no matter what. We also need Jesus because He holds our future. I also learned that we are like a vessel full of things that are bad but if we give everything to Jesus we would be emptied and he will be able to fill us up with good things and use us. When Min. Hammond finished the sermon, the choir sang for invitation and six people, including four children, came to Christ. We then had announcements and acknowledged the visitors. The last things we do on Youth Sunday before we leave are have Pastor Jolly come up and say a few things and then pray out. If you want to come to Mt. Pilgrim the address is 2700 W. Brown Street. Our Pastor is George H. Jolly. We have two services every Sunday of each month at 8:00 and 11:00 am. Except for the first Sunday, we have one service at 9:30 am. Mt. Pilgrim is a church where anybody is welcome.