For the past week, I have been in New Orleans, Louisiana participating in one of the biggest gatherings of Lutheran Youth in the world. The National Youth Gathering of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has brought over 33,000 high school students to NOLA where they can help to tear down houses and use those resources to make new affordable housing, read to illiterate children, clean up local parks, paint schools, hang out with kids, and love and worship their King.
Our theme for this gathering is Citizens with the Saints. We gather as citizens with the saints to learn to love like Jesus by practicing discipleship through peacemaking that works for justice. That is our main focus. Ephesians 2:14-20 says "For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with it's commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace and in his one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone." And that is the theme for the Gathering.
I arrived in New Orleans on Sunday, July 15. The moment that I stepped out of the airport, I knew that this was not going to be like the last NYG that I had attended. The smell in the air was different, the smile on the faces of the people were different, and the feel of the world was different. I had never felt such peace and relief in one place. It's a "flood of orange shirts" wherever we go. The people here say that there is no greater sight than to see a big blob of orange coming their way. They know that when the orange blob gets there, that things will get done. It's amazing how so many people from so many different places can all come together and work together for the greater good.
My prayer…. is that when all of the youth leave NOLA, they leave changed knowing that what they did makes a difference. Every one of them has their important roll. After all, we are all an important part of the BODY OF CHRIST. Amen!
