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2009 ELCA Youth Gathering E-News
March 2009 ► Issue 11

The Gathering E-News is sent to you each month and delivers Gathering information and news to you on New Orleans and beyond. Previous issues of the Gathering E-News are archived.

New Orleans has received thousands of volunteers over the past 3½ years, many being Lutheran, but nothing like the 37,000 people that will be serving during the three days of the ELCA Youth Gathering! It's hard to imagine what it will be like in July when busloads of people enter the city with hearts of compassionate justice.

We do know that the way in which we enter into the city will make a big difference. Gathering participants will want to take seriously their responsibility for preparation so that we come as servants rather than customers or tourists.

After June 8, leaders can go on-line and see their group's  ServantLife project assignment. Have your Primary Leader's email address and congregational ID # in hand, then go to your online registration record.

Learn more about ServantLife and compassionate justice in New Orleans.
 

Did you know that youth and their spending decisions can change the world with the way money is spent? Did you know young people have that kind of power? One estimate placed teenage spending at $179 billion* in 2006. There are many people and businesses clamoring to get the attention of young people in efforts to influence their use of power and resources to buy stuff.

Here is what many businesses and marketers think... they think that spending money makes young people feel like they have some control over their lives in an adult world. They think purchases and possessions define a person, create an identity, and even create communities.

The ELCA Youth Gathering and the ELCA have something different in mind! This is what we think… youth and adults have decided to spend a lot of money to come to New Orleans with thousands of other Lutheran youth to learn, serve, and worship. Gathering participants have chosen to “buy” an experience that will remind them of how powerful they are in the world. This kind of power is different than the power exercised in shopping malls, fast food restaurants, and vending machines. God’s power in you is not like most other kinds of power; its strength and influence revolves around:

• Jesus' life, sacrifice, and compassion
• forgiveness
• generosity and giving
• serving others
• humility
• putting the needs of others before our own
• justice in the world

We will work together, as Gathering participants and congregations, to Change the World by sharing our time, money, and resources with others through three Gathering offering opportunities:

• "Change in New Orleans" (On-line giving to buy service materials and tools before the Gathering. To be launched in April.)
• "Change for Change: ELCA World Hunger" (on-site contributions)
• "Sunday Worship Offering" (closing worship offering to be distributed to 6 international ministry projects and the recovery work of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod)

Stay tuned for further information from the Gathering and the ELCA Hunger Appeal.

* Newspaper Association of America. "Targeting Teen Consumers 2007."
 

• Project sites may change locations at the last minute
• Participants receive a briefing and information during travel to their site
• Traveling together helps builds community with other youth before the experience

Gathering staff will be sending a questionnaire to a random sample of about 6,300 youth who are registered for the Gathering. The information gathered from this sample of young people will help assess the faith impact of the Gathering ministry and shape future Gatherings.

This questionnaire will be mailed the week of March 23. Youth can respond by completing a paper or on-line version. The on-line version can be accessed through a special link that will be posted at www.elca.org/gathering, the Gathering home page.

The deadline for youth to submit completed questionnaires is Friday, April 17. If a young person in your group receives a questionnaire, please encourage them to complete it -- their input is valuable!
 

There is a man who stands on the corner of Chartres and Canal Streets shouting through a bullhorn, “Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) I’ve seen him every time I’ve been to New Orleans over the past two years.

At first, I didn’t take him seriously, and passed him without even a nod of acknowledgment, just like most of the people on the street. The more I see and hear him, however, the more I’m curious about his sense of call to public proclamation of the gospel.

His powerful and strong public witness nudges me to ask how I invite people to consider the good news of Jesus Christ.

I might not stand shouting on a street corner like this faithful man in New Orleans, but I hope I proclaim the new way and good news of Jesus when I…

• Sit with a friend who has lost his or her job and can’t see a way forward.
• Choose not to drive to the grocery store, and to walk the few short blocks so that I don’t add more life-threatening pollutants to the atmosphere.
• Gather with God’s people each Sunday morning for worship.
• Choose to buy Fair Trade coffee so that farmers and workers get a better price and wage.
• Protest the demolition of a public housing facility, knowing that many families will be displaced, humans who share my heritage as a child of God.
• Relinquish my place at a meeting to make way for someone who doesn’t usually get the attention of the inviters and conveners.
• Say ‘yes’ to an invitation to offer my gift of music in a public gathering.

The mere act of gathering together will be a bold public proclamation when upwards of 39,000 Lutheran youth and adults enter the City of New Orleans this summer. The fact that we are sending 12,000 youth per day into the city to serve the people of New Orleans is also a bold public proclamation. You have to admit, these are impressive numbers.

There is power in large numbers, but such an impressive presence and impact cannot be faithfully sustained, and it’s not the complete story or picture of who we are as God’s people called to serve. The church that Christ gathers, sends, and sustains goes way beyond the numbers and factoids, and grounds us back into everyday life. I encourage you to think about your congregation’s contribution to our corporate proclamation and witness in New Orleans, and your personal proclamation in your home community. How will you proclaim the “good news” today, right where you are?

Heidi Hagstrom
Director for the ELCA Youth Gathering

The Gathering and Wellplanet.org are working together to offer tools for being healthy, well, faithful servants of Christ.

Join the Wellplanet.org community today and discover a deeper spiritual link to faithfully restoring a more compassionate, greener, and healthier world through Christ who strengthens us. "Caring for ourselves to better care for others" is what www.wellplanet.org is all about.
 

Are your registration records up-to-date?

Please go into your on-line registration record to make corrections, substitutions, or to reprint your confirmation letter. You can make substitutions, but no additions or deletions. Have your congregational ID # and Primary Leader's e-mail ready to access your online records.

It is particularly important that information for each youth and adult is complete and up-to-date. May 25 is the last day corrections can be made to on-line registration records.
 

• Getting Ready resources
• Gathering E-News
• New Orleans resources & links
• Learn more about the ELCA Youth Gathering
• Learn more about Youth Ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

You are receiving this e-mail because you subscribed to the 2009 ELCA Youth Gathering E-News.  Unsubscribe from this list and stop receiving further Gathering E-News.  For general questions contact the ELCA Youth Gathering office at gathering@elca.org or 1-800-638-3522, ext. 2100.