Our young leaders have wrapped things up at the 2010 Global Young People's Convocation and Legislative Assembly in Berlin.
Check out the closing worship ceremonies and check in again soon as we gather the scoop from some of this year's delegates. We'll be nice and let the jet-lag wear off before we bombard them with questions!
More to come on what legislation was adopted...
Participants at the Global Young People's Convocation and Legislative Assembly(GYPCLA) are not letting the rain stop them from exploring Berlin today.
Some of you are probably wondering how sightseeing ties into strengthening the church...or even the Christian faith. Well, here's what I think:
Consider what Berlin has to offer. There are still standing sections of the Berlin Wall, prison sites and concentration camps, the Memorial Church and the living testimonies of those who lived in a divided city. Such places provide the perfect backdrop for young people, and Christians in general, to see how the power of God can overcome oppression. (Note that such a lesson can also be learned from visiting South Africa...as many young United Methodists did last year for the GYPCLA.)
Seeing the work of such a faithful and gracious God in an extreme environment, like Berlin, is bound to give these young people hope--a hope that they, united with each other in Christ, can overcome the injustice and oppression they experience and see in their daily life--both, inside and outside of the church.
If anything, I think these young church leaders are "rethinking church" and taking it upon themselves to extend the church experience beyond the church doors by engaging in the world, the ultimate body of Christ.
For more thoughts from delegates at the Global Convo, visit the Global Young People Blog.
(Photos courtesy of Amy Miller)
Over 300 young United Methodists from 32 countries have gathered in Berlin, Germany for the Global Young People's Convocation and Legislative Assembly, an event sponsored by Young People's Ministries--a division of the United Methodist Church's General Board of Discipleship.
This gathering, the second of its kind, is designed to bring young people together to learn from each other and celebrate who they are as church leaders.
For the next six days, participants will not only worship and grow in their faith, but will also help grow the church by proposing legislation, debating it and sending it to the 2012 General Conference in Tampa, Fla.
Check out this video from last year's gathering in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Want to see more? Tune in tonight at 7:30 p.m.CEST for GYPC's first live-streaming event from Berlin.
I love to travel, and I am often struck by the spiritual climates that surface in different parts of the country.
Writer Kathleen Norris tells about the ways geography affects our spirituality in her book Dakota, about life on the open plains. Though people in the Dakotas crave community, they also are slow to accept and trust new folks. The harsh climate has taught them to fend for themselves. And they know newcomers are not likely to last through more than a winter or two.
While visiting friends on the South-Central Coast of California last week, I asked what our hosts thought were the biggest spiritual struggles out there. It's a bit like Eden, after all: perfect weather, gorgeous scenery with mountains AND ocean, and crisp, clean air (outside of the metro areas).
The tendency toward self-indulgence, responded one of my friends. In California, life is what you make it, so people tend to grab for anything that appeals to them. A sort of individualism and selfishness and entitlement and high expectations. Not to mention a constant striving for that perfect size 0!
In Dallas, I replied, there's more of a struggle against the "cultural Christianity" of the Bible Belt, that doesn't always permeate the souls of church-goers. Not to mention the inherent pride of being a Texan and a prejudice toward anyone north of the Red River. Things are more predetermined here, I said. One's life is not what you make it -- rather it depends on who your daddy was, where you live and the kind of career you have.
And I remember in my hometown of Milwaukee, where we never felt quite as sophisticated as the big Windy City south of us, and where the oppressively overcast sky (what time of day is it, anyway?) nurtured a spirit of grumpiness as we slogged through the long winters. Our parochial, small-town mentality kept our eyes and ears focused on gossiping about family and friends than lifting our eyes toward more lofty considerations.
How about you? Has your spiritual geography had an impact on your faith development?
This is the time of year when United Methodists do lots of "conferencing." Many people attend one Annual Conference; others, for various reasons, wind up at several of them. I have two down, one to go -- and if time and technology allow, I'll post Monday's blog entry from my third Conference of this month.
Some things I've noticed so far this season:
- Rethink Church seems to be getting some traction. One comment I've heard: "The problem is that so many people think it's someone else's church that needs rethinking, not their own." We'll see if folks can get beyond that. I know leaders in my local church are constantly rethinking how we do things; soon, we'll see if we can get better at redoing -- that is, at actually making changes.
- Remember Mary's post about Holy Happy Meals? I experienced the swine-flu version of Communion with hermetically-sealed host while attending Southwest Texas Annual Conference in Corpus Christi. Yes, I get their logic. But I still was a bit put off by the sound of a thousand or more tiny cellophane seals being peeled off the tops of little wafer/juice combo packs. Frankly, it reminded me of David Letterman's 1980s gimmick of jumping into a large bowl of milk wearing a suit covered in Rice Krispies.
And, I feel duty-bound to share a comment I received from one of my non-churchgoing friends when I posted about that Communion experience on my personal blog: "wow. A juice cup and a wafer. If only they made them with Dora [the Explorer] on them, we'd be in business. wow. Somehow, it seems to me that breaking bread together never should have made it to this. It's like, I like you, and we're sharing in this really cool thing, but I don't like you THAT much. wow."
- I'm part of my own Conference's new Strategic Planning Team. We actually broke out into small groups for listening sessions, and even as limited as those were (70 minutes, with about 30 people each), we're receiving great feedback on our efforts to let every voice in our Conference be heard. We'll see what develops in the coming year and how we discern God's vision. We also cut the length of Conference by half a day and still got everything done, which I found encouraging.
And, I leave you with a link for your enjoyment: Questing Parson, aka the Rev. Guy Kent, is no stranger to rethinking church. Go have a read; you might want to click on a few more of his posts while you're at it.
I'm at Congress on Evangelism, which this year had a lot to do with Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, Bishop Robert Schnase's book.
Here's the group of Methobloggers, Twitter types, and friends who met up Wednesday night at Congress On Evangelism. Gavin has more pics and a good roundup of our discussion, which went on for more than 3 hours. Thanks, Wayne (TNRambler), for suggesting the meetup in the first place, and thanks to everyone else who jumped in, especially Bishop Schnase, one of the newer bloggers in the group that gathered. (Others pictured include Mid-Life Rookie, Reverend Mommy, Jay Voorhees, RileyByrd, Erin Richardson, and Amy Shanholzter.)
As effective as blogging can be at building relationships, being in the same room makes an immeasurable difference. I have tons of notes on the lectures and workshops, which I'll eventually distill into a Reporter article, but that evening session that wasn't on any official agenda is the one that meant the most to me as an individual.
Now, off to the last sessions of the event, and back to Dallas this afternoon. Hope your weekend's wonderful. (Saturday morning I'll be helping to lead a workshop at my local church on the first of the Five Practices discussed in the book: Radical Hospitality. Yet another reason I'm glad I came.)
So the warden let us off last week for good behavior.
What an experience it was recently to visit The Rock -- the former federal penitentiary on a small island, just a mile from San Francisco. So close, and so far.
Prisoners, we were told, could sometimes hear (and even see -- from the prison recreation yard) folks sailing in the Bay and having "fun." All while the inmates served their time day-after-day in a cold, drafty and damp cell.
They, no doubt, "deserved" it. Certainly the prisoners who were sent to Alcatraz were the worst of the worst. Men who had often caused trouble in other prisons across the country and needed maximum security lock-down.
Still, what torment it must have been for them, to daily see the San Francisco skyline and watch the sailboats so nearby. It reminded me of how someone once described hell: like an itch you can't scratch.
Some found they couldn't stand it. Thirty-four men tried to escape; all but five were caught. One made it to entrance of the Bay but was picked up on the rocks under the Golden Gate Bridge, too weak from the extremely strenuous swim to even lift himself out of the water. The five who were never seen again are presumed dead, lost to the strong current and cold waters of the Bay.
My thoughts shifted as I stared at that now taunting skyline, where the people-who-were-not-in-prison lived.
