Lutheran Youth Impress New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS (ELCA) -- More than 28,400 teen-agers are bound to make an impression. The Youth Gathering of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America brought them here July 23-27 along with 6,900 adults. What seems to have impressed the city the most was the generosity of young Lutherans.
"We love you," said Marlin N. Gusman, the city's chief administrative officer, during opening ceremonies at the Louisiana Superdome. "Your energy has already been felt in the city and the impact of your community service will be felt."
Thousands of the youth took part in "servant events," working long hours in Louisiana heat and humidity on three of their five days in New Orleans. They took on a variety of cleanup projects in the city's Desire, Florida and Algiers Point neighborhoods -- sweeping sidewalks in public housing, shoveling debris from vacant lots, painting over graffiti, cleared drains and gutters for elderly residents, digging community gardens and picking up litter around school buildings.
"We came here to have a good time, but we also wanted to do something to help, to put something back into the community we're visiting," Jessica Minnich, 17, Brogue, Pa., told a reporter from The Times-Picayune.
The teens brought 25 tons of non-perishable food items for the Second Harvest Food Bank, New Orleans, which collects and distributes food worldwide. Summer months are slow times for food banks; so the gifts were designated a "Christmas in July" offering.
They also dropped more than $325,000 in collection plates to benefit several ministries: Mwangaza Educational Resource Center in Tanzania, U.S. Homeless Ministries, ELCA Braille and Tape Services, Ministry to Street Children in Brazil, Corridor Ministry along the Rio Grande Valley, Prison Congregations of America, Pastoral Interns for U.S. Inner Cities, The Amity Foundation of China, ELCA Native American Ministries, Community Mission and Development Project in Colombia, and the Ashram Ministry to Women in India.
The ELCA Youth Gathering is held every three years in a different city. The next gathering, in 2000, will be held in St. Louis for about 40,000 Lutherans in two groups of 20,000.
The young Lutherans, 15 to 18 years old, had the good time that brought them to New Orleans. There was fellowship, Bible study and worship. All 35,000 gathered each day at the Louisiana Superdome for worship and an inspirational speech.
"You young baptized ones, the Lord has need of you to bear his word to the world," the Rev. Andrea DeGroot-Nesdahl, bishop of the ELCA's South Dakota Synod, told the Superdome audience. "You are young leaders with vision and compassion and gifts and burning faith in your hearts."
"We all have to reach, to risk, to put ourselves on the line," said Steve Rohr at the Dome. "Fear prevented the disciples from keeping their promise to Jesus. Fear can keep you from keeping your promise to Jesus," said the 27-year-old member of St. Francis Lutheran Church, San Francisco.
The Rev. Walter Wangerin, Jr., Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Ind., spoke to a Superdome audience Friday evening to celebrate the meaning of Jesus' death. He said it was indeed a "Good" Friday because Christians know the good news of Easter is coming.
"Why are we here, 35,000 of us, listening to the ancient story of God?" asked the Rev. Gladys G. Moore, Jersey City, N.J. "Someone talked about the resurrection of Jesus ... and now we have an incredible crowd of believers." Moore is assistant to the bishop of the ELCA's New Jersey Synod.
After Moore spoke, 29 young people were baptized into the Christian faith by their hometown pastors and another 14 affirmed their baptisms earlier in the year. The Rev. Paul J. Blom, bishop of the ELCA's Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod, was the presiding minister.
"Jesus will be waiting for you when you get home," the Rev. H. George Anderson, presiding bishop of the ELCA, told the young people before they left New Orleans at the close of the Youth Gathering. "You are going home. Back to the familiar ... after this once-in-a-lifetime experience. But you won't be leaving Jesus here."

PRE-GATHERING

Two specific groups of teens met in pre-gathering events July 20-23. Young members of ELCA congregations that are not predominantly white gathered at Tulane University for the Multicultural Youth Leadership Event (MYLE), and the Definitely Abled Youth Leadership Event (DAYLE) gave participants with disabilities a chance to get to know each other and the facilities being used for the ELCA Youth Gathering before the crowds arrived.
"Stones in the River" was the MYLE theme for more than 600 "children of color." MYLE provided leadership opportunities through elections to three-year terms on the Multicultural Advisory Committee (MAC) of the Lutheran Youth Organization, the youth organization of the ELCA.

The DAYLE included a business session that asked the Lutheran Youth Organization to create a Definitely Abled Advisory Committee (DAC). The LYO Convention approved the resolution establishing the DAC on July 26.

LYO CONVENTION

About 500 of the youth were convention delegates of the Lutheran Youth Organization, the ELCA's youth organization. The convention conducts LYO business every three years in conjunction with the ELCA Youth Gathering.
Rebecca D. Lawrence, 17, Chicago, was elected LYO president at the fourth triennial convention here July 24-26. The convention also voted to support ecumenism, to oppose capital punishment and to develop a conference for gay, lesbian and bisexual youth.
Lawrence will serve a three-year term, succeeding Karris Golden, 20, a communication student at Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa. Lawrence will attend the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in the fall.
Delegates asked the LYO board "to investigate the possibility of planning and developing a pre-gathering conference for gay, lesbian and bisexual youth" for the next ELCA Youth Gathering in 2000 in St. Louis. They also asked that direct lines of communication be opened with human rights organizations working for an end to capital punishment.
LYO delegates voted to support ecumenical proposals scheduled to be voted on at the 1997 ELCA Churchwide Assembly to be held Aug. 14-20 in Philadelphia.

TREKS

The Lutheran Youth Gathering included ten "treks" -- extensive workshops on life and faith experiences.
"You must begin by studying the issues and write letters to your members of Congress," former U.S. Senator Paul Simon told 1,600 young people attending "Pale Blue Dot" -- a trek on political solutions to global problems. Simon talked about confronting poverty and hunger. "When you write a letter, you save a life," he said.
Five thousand teens took "Trek 2001: A Technological Odyssey." They gathered in the Superdome to engage in designing graphic computer slide shows, videos, web sites and fliers. Lutheran World Relief gave technology in developing countries a spotlight. NASA executives came to speak with the young people on the technology of space and the lives of astronauts aboard the spacecraft.
When it comes to sharing music and dance from various cultures, young people do it with passion, vigor and pride. About 1,500 teens celebrated diversity at "Festival of Cultures" -- a trek about ethnic communities. "This trek gave young people the opportunity to learn about different cultures by meeting international students and participating in a variety of multicultural activities," said the Rev. Sherman G. Hicks, First Trinity Lutheran Church, Washington, D.C.

Young Lutherans got a chance to try writing a song, drawing a cartoon, cooking a Cajun-style dish or just imagining ways of seeing things differently. In a trek called "Creativity Unleashed," 3,500 of the teens tapped into the arts to express themselves and their<