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The community of Christ is coming
together in San Antonio, Texas. Lutheran youth and adults are
coming from all over the map to be renewed in their faith
journey. They are crossing every kind of border to be with
friends and neighbors who share the same name―Child of God.
In the company of the Beloved and
gathered in San Antonio, youth will learn to see Jesus more
clearly, love Jesus more dearly, and follow Jesus more nearly.
They will be opened to the many faces of God by listening to
the stories of friends who are different from them. They will
touch the places where wounds are, and learn that Jesus meets
them before they’re all fixed up. They will practice telling
God’s ancient story in new ways and, in so doing, create a
future worth wanting.
It's About Hope
This Gathering is about young
people risking being a certain way in the world together. It
is about following Jesus’ lead and crossing boundaries that
keep us alienated from each other and from God. It is about
our need for each other and for God. It is about the dynamic
of faith which is life lived in the tension of God’s ways
colliding with the ways of the world.
Teenagers know this tension. A
day rarely goes by when they aren't wondering how a loving God
is active in a world that includes war, tsunamis, poverty, and
hatred. Parents know it too. Many are scared and overwhelmed
by the responsibility of rearing faithful children in a world
where the familiar boundaries of right and wrong are redefined
regularly, where temptations abound via the media, where
pressures to be perfect hold captive a teenager's attention,
and where cultural diversity is redefining the United States
of America. Even the Christian Church knows it. Once perceived
as the center of people's lives, the church today sometimes
feels less like a rock and more like a pebble caught in the
whitewater rapids of the world.
In the community of the
Gathering, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, youth will see
that faith gives them the strength to steer into the
whitewater rapids of real life rather than navigating around
it or abandoning ship. They will learn how to recognize Jesus
in the tension of the border situations in their lives and in
the world. They will wake up to who they are in Christ; look
around and see Christ in the eyes of those standing beside
them; turn around and walk in a new direction; cross over and
experience the “something new” that Jesus promises; and go
with God into the world as witnesses to Jesus’ way of
compassion and justice.
It's About Change
There is the potential for young
people to return home profoundly changed by their encounter
with God through Christ in the lives of people of faith that
they will meet at the Gathering from across the country and
around the world, their friends, neighbors, and strangers
along the way. They may act differently, not because it is
popular or hip, but because their eyes are open and their
hearts changed. Young people have the opportunity, through
this Journey with Jesus, to experience their call to service
in a new way. Our call is to get them there… and share in the
experience.
“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean
from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will
cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I
will put within you; and I will remove from your body the
heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel
36:25-26 NRSV)
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