Catching the Fire

In the 1990s, a Toronto megachurch was in the midst of a spiritual revival. Christians from all walks of life, nearly every corner of the globe descended upon this church to pray, to sing, to revive their faith. Each Easter, a special conference called Catch the Fire was held at that church for the youth. (there were also Catch the Fire conferences for adults at other times of the year, from what I recall.)  I was 12 years old the first time I attended it with our church youth group.

Mom and Dad had taken up there on short family trips in the year or so preceding this first conference.  We had slid enough into the middle class that taking a family vacation meant something other than going camping. Had someone asked me about our previous trips to Toronto, I probably would have talked about how good it was to hear the word of God, how lucky I was to take part the new revival God was pouring out over the GTA (and the rest of the world.)

The preteen in me, though, was just as/more excited about other things Toronto had to offer: multi-storied secular bookstores the size of the passageway church, the thrilling anonymity of walking up and  down Yonge Street without ever bumping into old acquaintances. But we were there, primarily, to soak up the word of God. And soak it up we did. Picture a few thousand teenagers under one roof, praise music thumping so insistently ones very thoughts pulsate. Had it been something I experienced every week at church back home the raw energy of the crowd would have been too much to sustain. As a once-a-year event, though, it was something even this deep introvert grew into.

One of the most memorable speakers at this conference was a woman who wanted us to avoid sex with one another (or anyone else, I'd imagine.) Unlike the other abstinence educators I'd come across, she believed that men have an emotional reaction to sex.* She called for a volunteer. When the volunteer came up to the stage he had a piece of duct tape secured onto his arm as she told a story about how someone might feel the first time he falls in love. The duct tape was suppose to represent his capacity to love and bond with his partner. Right now, they were looking pretty bonded.

Then she told us that the relationship didn't work out as she ripped the duct tape off of his skin. His skin stayed attached to his body. The hair on his arms did not.  She then attempted to reattach the duct tape to his skin a few more times. It attached less and less every time. Eventually, it fell off his arm entirely. Useless.

Which, while it was probably intended to warn us about the danger of forming long-term attachments in short-term relationships, scared the h-e-l-l out of me. I was never, ever having sex now that I'd seen that presentation. No way.

At one point during our trip, we skipped a half day of the conference to go shopping and explore the city. We were even able to ride the TTC for a few stops which, looking back, was an incredibly brave thing for two adults chaperoning nearly a dozen teens to do. I remember walking through a bookstore and wishing I could remain in that paradise. I'd never seen so many (new! secular!) books in my entire life. The bookstore we had back home was the size of a small apartment and devoted two-thirds of its space to fashion magazines, bibles and Christian novels.

*Past abstinence educators had taught me that men like sex because it feels good, that women accept it out of peer pressure, and that any man one slept with would leave one's life as quickly as he had entered it.  And this was in a public school.  Ah, the joy of growing up in a small town. ;)

(Photo credit.)