July 2024 Newsletter
Reflections on the ELCA Youth Gathering
by Rev. Kerri Clark
Austin Channing Brown speaking at the 2024 ELCA Youth Gathering
It was such a joy to attend the ELCA Youth Gathering in New Orleans earlier this month! The theme of the event was "Created to Be" with a different focus for each day: Brave, Authentic, Free, Disruptive, Disciples. Both the speakers at each evening's mass gathering and the stations in the Interaction Center highlighted the ELCA's priorities around diversity and justice. While ELCA congregations have differing levels of commitment and engagement with diversity and justice, I'm so glad that 16,000 of our young people could experience our church's wide-ranging commitments and partnerships with various organizations over this week.
From the main stage, we heard from a variety of vibrant, compelling speakers about their diverse personal experiences.
A young man shared his story of leaving home in El Salvador with his mother at a young age to request asylum at our southern border.
Pastor Emily Harkins shared about her ministry among our unhoused neighbors at the Dwelling in North Carolina.
Austin Channing Brown spoke about racism, reminding us that people of color are not the the work, racial justice is the work. "The freedom work we are called to is to honor the dignity of every person in the world."
Pastor Lori Fuller shared about her ministry at Palms Deaf Church in Florida, and taught us the ASL for "I am not a mistake. You are not a mistake."
Pastor Keats Miles-Wallace shared about finally feeling free to be themselves. "In college, I finally discovered that being me was better than being who people wanted me to be,” they said. “I found places of worship that would accept me for my whole self, not just the parts people said God would love...God didn’t just accept me—God loved me, delighted in me. I was created to be free. Free to discover and to be my weird, different and unique transgender, nonbinary, neurodivergent, Anglo and Mex-Indigenous self.”
Pastor Sally Azar, the first Palestinian woman to be ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, invited a delegation of youth from Palestine on stage with her. She shared that “To be created to be disruptive means to figure out which rules shouldn’t be rules in the first place," and highlighted that "Every human being deserves to be safe and free."
At times, the fullness of the days and the weight of the content felt like drinking from a firehose. This was perhaps especially true for participants who found the material to be unfamiliar, or felt that it challenged their previously held beliefs and understandings. Even so, I felt so encouraged by the breadth and depth of the presentations. So often we hear about issues, and how we are so divided. So often we are presented with clinical statistics with varying bias leading us to focus on who is right and who is wrong. I'm so grateful for an experience that personalized and put faces to issues - issues can be argued and dissected, but these? These are our siblings in Christ. These are people, with hopes and dreams and challenges just like us, created by God to be exactly who they are. We, all of us, are enriched by diversity, enriched by broadening our horizons, and enriched by the pursuit of justice, following the example of Jesus.
Recaps of each day appeared on the Living Lutheran website: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4
Videos of the mass gatherings will be available this fall as part of the Gathering Remix curriculum, available to order here.
Tending the Fires of Freedom: Good Religion for Challenging Times
The theme of the 2024 Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. event was "Fires of Freedom and Cloud of Witnesses." In worship and the panel discussion, we heard stories of biblical, historical, and local women who kindled and tended the fires of freedom, often from behind the scenes. As a continuation of that theme, the ADJ team invites you to join in reading Have You Got Good Religion: Black Women’s Faith, Courage, & Moral Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement by Dr. AnneMarie Mingo of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
Buy the book through the ADJ Bookshop link and support future MLK events.
Watch an overview of the book here, from a presentation by Dr. Mingo earlier this year.
Join the conversation with members of the ADJ Team on Thursday, August 15 at 7pm on Zoom
-AND-
in person at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary with Dr. Mingo on Thursday, September 12 at 7pm
Let us know you're planning to attend here.
Disability Pride Month
July is Disability Pride Month. Check out this podcast series called "Making Space for Every Body-Mind" from All Places Together, an ELCA non-geographic community based in Virginia. APT seeks to gather individuals who are searching for God in the wilderness of life, individuals who deeply want to connect to something beyond themselves, and individuals who believe the love of Jesus is embodied in all of God's diverse creation.
Making Space for Every Body-Mind: Learning Together
Making Space 101
Making Space for Every Body-Mind: The Paralyzed Man
Online workshop: Preaching in an Age of Polarization
Faith+Lead from Luther Seminary is offering an online workshop called "Preaching in an Age of Polarization" on Thursday, August 22 from 1-2:30pm Eastern Time. For more information, and to register, click here.
ULS Series - ELCA Social Statements
Join presenters from across the ELCA for a series of Zoom lectures about some of our most timely ELCA Social Statements as we ponder the question "What does it mean to be Lutheran in a crucial election year?" The series continues on August 27 with Corporate Social Responsibility led by Rev. Kaari Reierson, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility for the ELCA . View the flyer here.