Holy Trinity at the Gathering

Gratitude for the Lutheran teens who visited New Orleans

One really cool moment in the mass Gatherings at the Superdome was the wave of light — starting from the stage, the MC opened her phone and “handed” the light to a helper, who “handed” that light to the front row, and on back throughout the whole Superdome, while the House Band played a version of “Let My Little Light Shine.”  With the lights low, all those waving lights were beautiful.  I tried to capture a bit of the scene; here’s what came out.  As for the singing — it’s hard not to join in on “Let My Little Light Shine”!

Little Light at the Gathering

Lutheran volunteers descend on New Orleans – video

It’s Raining Lutherans! – blogofneworleans.com

Some 30,000 Lutheran Teens Hit New Orleans for Jesus, Justice, Jazz – The Christian Post

Something’s afoot in New Orleans with biggest convention since Katrina – WWL News Talk Sports

Biggest post-Katrina convention visits New Orleans – Forbes.com

LIFTING, LOVING, LEARNING – The Times Picayune

Teens will attend youth gathering in New Orleans – The Ogle County News

Youth groups heading to New Orleans – Red Wing Republican Eagle

Biggest convention since Katrina hits New Orleans – WXVT

City flooded with teens giving their time to volunteer for N.O. – WWLTV

‘Army’ Of Young Lutheran Volunteers Flood City – WDSU

“Jesus Justice Jazz”: 2009 ELCA National [sic] Youth Gathering – Examiner.com

There is a big collection of pictures at Gatheringpics.

Our final day was filled with worship — we shared Communion with 37,000 people! — and last-minute shopping, before heading for the airport.  The closing worship had some fantastic touches.  After a week spent talking about — and acting out — service and working for justice, the processional brought in worklights, traffic cones, and building materials.  The altar was four doors, brightly painted, set on sawhorses, with a green tarp for a parament.  A very nice touch.

Bishop Hanson preached, and did an excellent job of hammering home the thought that these young people can change the world, and that they can and must continue the work they’ve begun.  Oh, and he led a wave, which rippled from the front all the way to the back of the 3rd balcony and back — a very cool sight with 37,000 people!

When we arrived at the Atlanta airport, I had warned our group that, despite a 2-hour layover this time, we were going straight from our arrival to our departure gate, so that we would know immediately and completely where it was, and then, and only then, could they get something to eat.  So that’s what we did — and of course, the departure gate this time was right nextdoor.  Figures. 

We arrived at Holy Trinity at 2am, to find a marvelous “Welcome Home” sign on the front entryway.  Thanks to everyone for your prayers and for your support to make this happen.  For me, it was a fulfilling and transformational experience; I will leave it to the youth to tell you what it meant for them.  So be sure to ask them when you see them.

Oh, and watch for August’s Parish Visitor (newsletter) for more reflections to come…

Peace,

-Pastor Tim

We spent much of today in the Interaction Center, fully a half mile of activities, booths, things to do, bumper cars (pedaled, of course), and at one point a parade down the center.  In keeping with the theme of the Gathering — Jesus, Justice, Jazz — there were lots of things to do and learn about justice issues like hunger, poverty, clean water, and the like.  We sent a postcard to Rep. Joe Donnelly to call on him to vote to end hunger; signed postcards to be delivered to President Obama encouraging him to address climate change at the world summit in September; and enjoyed time together.

Then after a *very* late lunch, it was time to shop at the Riverwalk.  Tonight’s Mass Gathering was fantastic — Don Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz; Anne Mahlum, who as a teenager started Back on My Feet, an organization to promote health and recovery of homeless people through running; and a letter to the Gathering from President Obama!  The band tonight was the Katinas, who played a lot of praise and worship songs that the whole superdome sang along with.

Tonight for our reflections we talked about the things we learned today that surprised us — that 40 million American adults are functionally illiterate (that’s 1 in 4); that Louisiana loses a football field’s worth of wetlands every 30 minutes; and more.  But what we talked about most was a sense that we can, and must, do something.  Again our youth said it — “We want to make a difference in the world.”

Today was our tour-around-New-Orleans day.  My friend Brian Perry  joined us for the morning, and gave us the insider’s perspective.  We started by driving through the French Quarter and over to the 9th Ward, which has gotten a lot of press.  It’s incredible how close these are — the Quarter which wasn’t under water, and then what stretches for hours of driving that was.  Brian said that over 80% of the city was flooded after Katrina.

Down in the 9th Ward, we saw houses that had been gutted — after the water, if an owner planned to keep the house, they had to strip it down to its studs and let them dry, and then clean and sand off the residue from the water even from there.  It was striking how many empty lots there were, where before Katrina were proud houses, children playing, a park.

One house we saw had a hole punched in the roof, which Brian said was where a homeowner had to chop through his/her own roof to get up on top, to get away from the water.  It was a very striking day.

Then tonight’s Mass Gathering featured two speakers, a young man whose legs had to be amputated at age 2, and another young man who was a child soldier in the Republic of Congo at age 5.  Imagine — at age 5, he was abducted by rebel soldiers, blindfolded, told to pull the trigger of the AK-47 they handed him, only to pull off his blindfold and discover that he’d just killed his best friend, Kevin.  And then the soldiers told him, “You’re a killer now.  Your family won’t want you back.  We’re your only family now.”

All in all, a powerful day.

More pictures at Gathering – Friday

I uploaded more pictures at http://holytrin.com/pages/photos/gathering-2009–thursday.php

Today was our dServantLife project, where 12,000 people set out across New Orleans to volunteer their sweat and effort and energy for the day.  We served at the Arthur Ashe Charter School, a school that grew in enrollment by almost 50% this year (from 150 students to 250!), and so had to switch to a new building.  When we arrived, the cafeteria was a sea of boxes, furniture, filing cabinets, tables, desks, you name it.  By the time we left…  it was a cafeteria again!  There were 40 of us serving there; some carried things to the appropriate classroom, some helped take leftover stuff like staples and tape and glue off the walls, and some did special projects like putting up enrollment signs around the building, getting the clocks to run, and the like.  We even got to set up some of the classrooms, and one at least was under the guidance of the teacher who will be actually using it!  It was a sweaty, tiring, fulfilling, exhausting, wonderful day.

After cleaning up and showering, we ventured into the French Quarter for dinner at The Gumbo Shop.  We got to walk around a bit and saw the St. Louis Cathedral, and the 5 psychics camped out in the plaza in front.  (My question: if they’re psychics, shouldn’t they have known that there would be so much competition?)  We caught the last half of the Mass Gathering program at the Superdome, and got to drive past 38,000 people streaming down Poyndras street, trying to get cars to honk, singing songs, hollering at each other, having a great time.

For Community Life we went to the Hilton to see what the Fun Club was about (we were looking for Laser Tag, but no go), and listened to the Gathering Idol.  We were glad that our favorite won!  Now we’re waiting for our Final 15 devotions, and then lights out.  I think we’ll be glad to sleep tonight.

All in all, it was a day filled with different activities, meeting new people (we’re trying to “collect” people from all 50 states), serving, learning, stretching ourselves, growing.  As we walked back from ServantLife I asked the group about the experience, if it’s something they liked, didn’t, want to do more, what.  They responded: “More, we should do more.  I like making a difference.”

And that, is why we’re here.

-Pastor Tim

If you’d like to follow along with what’s happening in New Orleans, the ELCA Gathering folks are posting a live video feed of the mass gathering activities (evenings).  Check it out at http://www.elca.org/Growing-In-Faith/Ministry/Youth-Ministry/Youth-Gathering/Live-Video.aspx