07/23/2015

ELCA youth rise up to help residents of Detroit

CHICAGO (ELCA) – Participants of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Youth Gathering held in Detroit July 15-19 responded to the event’s theme “Rise Up Together” by taking part in neighborhood service projects throughout the Detroit metro area.

The projects included helping clean up neighborhoods and boarding up abandoned houses, creating community gardens, painting and cleaning schools and community centers, packaging food into family-sized portions for distribution and helping install mosaics on the backstops at a neighborhood baseball field.

The youth and adults at the Gathering also collected nearly one million diapers to help kick-start the city’s diaper bank. Starfish Family Services helped manage the collection and has partnered with 37 agencies that provide early childhood care in Detroit. Starfish will also distribute diapers to families.

In preparation for each ELCA Youth Gathering, participants are asked to make in-kind donations of non-perishable items that are needed in the host city.

In addition to addressing the need of Detroit residents, the youth and adults at the Gathering also learned about global needs, such as clean water. In response, the ELCA World Hunger’s Walk for Water exhibit raised more than $402,000 during the event. The exhibit at Detroit’s Cobo Center simulated the experience of women in Sub-Saharan Africa who walk an average of three miles each day to get water for their families.

Held every three years, ELCA Youth Gatherings brings tens of thousands of youth, adult leaders, volunteers and other Lutherans from around the world for leadership development, faith formation, service opportunities and more. The 2018 Gathering will be in Houston. The location was announced at the closing worship July 19 at Detroit’s Ford Field.

In her sermon at the closing worship, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton told those assembled that there are “thin spaces … where we come into those places that are out of our normal elements and somehow the supernatural seems to be a normal thing to happen.”

“I think that happened to us this week,” Eaton said. “We were taken out of our normal places wherever they were across this country and the Caribbean and we were set down here in Detroit, and we were just ready – ready to see what was going to happen. The spirit could come in because we didn’t have our defenses up.”

Eaton recounted the day’s Gospel reading from Mark 6: 30-44 and said the crowds that came to Jesus for healing understood that he was not just “some super healer with super powers. Instead this was the living God, the God incarnate, God in the flesh, God with us, who would, to complete his mission, be broken on the cross and by that death and resurrection we have justice. The world has been reconciled; we have our peace.”

Eaton emphasized to the gathering that “Jesus is more than just a miracle worker or a justice worker, because if that were all he was, all the stuff that we’ve been doing this week, and what I hope you will continue back in your hometowns, would be for nothing.”

“The work that we do catching up with where God has already reconciled the world to God’s self is not always going to be perky and upbeat and fun,” she said. “There’s a lot that’s going to be difficult. There will be a lot of times when we feel that we’re not making any change, but we’ve got to trust and believe that the change has been made. And that resting in that confidence, resting in the crucified and risen Christ, we might know true joy.”

The presiding bishop closed her sermon by posing a question to those gathered, asking whether they would still find that joy when faced with difficult decisions once they return home.

“Now here’s the thing brothers and sisters: can we sing hallelujah particularly and especially when it gets hard, when we’re weary and we think we can’t do this anymore?” asked Eaton. “When we’re in the company of friends or classmates or coworkers and they start in with some racial slur, can we still have the strength to say, ‘No, that’s a child of God. We won’t talk that way.’ Can we be busy in our communities when people think, ‘Well, you’re just a bunch of do-gooders. You don’t realize how the world really works.’ And when we’re weary from helping people who have food insecurity or people who don’t have homes or when we try to talk to our town councils or even our congregations and say we’ve got to get busy, can we still sing hallelujah?” asked Eaton.

Heidi Hagstrom, who is leaving her position as director of the ELCA Youth Gathering, was recognized during the closing worship for her years of service to the event. Hagstrom, who has served as director since 1994, is leaving her position to participate in the Theological Education for Emerging Ministries program at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. Wartburg is one of eight ELCA seminaries. Hagstrom will serve in the ELCA Southwestern Minnesota Synod.
“When you came to this community, we rejoiced to receive you in this ministry,” said Eaton. “In this community of faith, you have heard the preaching of God’s word, which reveals God’s loving purpose for you and all creation. God has blessed you in this community, and God has blessed us with you through your ministry and presence among us.”

Molly Beck Dean, the new director for the ELCA Youth Gathering, was installed during the service.
In an encore appearance, Natasha T. Miller, a spoken-word poet from Detroit, recited a poem that she wrote for the closing worship.

“You are something bigger, you are part of something bigger, me who lost my brother from the streets, you who lost your aunt to cancer, and you who lost your faith in the fire of your life, we have to know that all of our scars create a road map that leads us to our own resurrection. We are never lost, just discovering new paths. We know that death is a part of life, suicide don’t cure depression, judgment is for the weak, and we, we are strong and in it even when we are alone together. Thank you ELCA, you have been amazing. Thank you,” said Miller.