[woody]

Dylan, I think this is a good idea and I appreciate you bringing this up. Members of any religion should certainly feel a need to gather and pray to whichever supreme being they choose, and FIRST does, after all, embody a number of values that are also held by many religions. As a Christian myself, i am disappointed that this has not been mentioned earlier. We should all strive to live out our religion more in our daily lives, including in FIRST.

As for your concerns, Cory, i can understand your concerns. I would certainly hope that no one would feel at all pressured to take part in such a group; as you mentioned, such activities should not necessarily be a part of official, mandatory meetings. However, this could potentially serve as a young person's first experience with Christianity and could have a profound impact on his or her life. It would be a shame to eliminate this possibility. On another note, this really has nothing to do with "separation of church and state." First, praying at regionals has very little to do with the state and/or federal governments at all. Secondly, none of the founding documents even imply that public gatherings or political events must be free from any and all religion; however, the establishment of a religion (that is, direct government support, funding, or reqired practice of said religion) is expressly prohibitted.

So basically what I'm trying to say is that praying at regionals is a great idea; it could help bring teams together and it would certainly provide a forum in which students and mentors could express their beliefs.
Thanks Dylan, this is a wonderful idea.