The following transcript was presented to the St. Matthew Congregation on Sunday, August 18, 2024 as part of an ELCA Youth Gathering Reflection.
Day 1: Created to be Brave
We arrived at the airport at 4:00 AM to check in and board our 7:12am flight.
We finally arrived to New Orleans around 1:20pm and we checked into our hotel in downtown New Orleans right across the street from the convention center where many of the Youth Gathering Activities took place.
We settled into our rooms and then we went to find a dinner location on our way to the first Mass Gathering - which happened each night at the Smoothie King Stadium - the basketball stadium in New Orleans.
The theme of the day was CREATED TO BE BRAVE which we engaged during the Mass Gathering that evening where we danced along with the house band, and heard from Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, Bishop of the Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod Michael Rinehart, and Dr. Michael Chan, a new testament prof who said we should be brave and let our light shine as bright as it can regardless of the world which may want to “hide it under a bushel.” It was amazing to be in the stadium with 16,000 other young people doing church together!
Each night we would do what was called “Final 15” which was about 15 minutes of sharing a high and low for the day, and then saying a prayer before we went to bed.
Day 2: Created to be Authentic
Each morning we had a Bible study along with our breakfast. On Day two we ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant and talked about living authentically as ourselves.
After bible study and breakfast we walked across the street to the convention center where we spent the day wandering around activity spaces that engaged many of the ministries of the ELCA churchwide body. There were also blow-up obstacle courses, nine-square courts, badminton - which the boys played AND WON. A shop called “Old Lutheran” that sold goofy Lutheran things and food courts.
As you can see in some of these pictures, we got to wear hats with tons of flowers on them!
Pastor Brian and Ryan got our breakfast food delivery on Day 2 and you can see them on the sidewalk outside our hotel with all our food.
For dinner on Day 2, we found a small Creole place called The Creole Cookery and we ordered gumbo, jambalaya and “Gater Bites” which were fried alligator meat! WE were determined to try some real New Orleans-style food!
Then we went to the Mass Gathering for Day 2 where we engaged the theme CREATED TO BE AUTHENTIC and heard from one of the best speakers all week, Jaqueline Bussie, who shared an amazing story of resilience and living into her authentic self by saying “The next time the haters hate, God wants you to remember you are a flipping miracle anyways.”
After the mass gathering on Day 2 we went to a dance! It was great doing conga lines, and dancing to Taylor Swift. We shut the dancefloor down!
Day 3: Created to be Free
On Day three we had our Accompaniment Day - this was our day of service and learning.
We got up extra early on Day 3 and went to the convention center where we were assigned a room and learned about mental health advocacy and the place of the church in mental health programs around the country.
Our leaders for the day were from the World Council of Churches and we engaged in conversation about our own mental health and the mental health issues we face in our community.
Lucas and Wyatt presented for our table and they both CRUSHED IT at the podium!
Our group came up with two commitments that we want to try to lead at St. Matthew:
1) Do a fundraiser at St. Matthew that will benefit a mental health organization in our community.
2) Meet up with other church youth groups from 5 other churches and share about our experience in New Orleans and see what things other people in our age-group are experiencing or know about mental health. We just want to break the silence about this topic.
At the Mass Gathering on Day 3 we engaged the theme CREATED TO BE FREE and heard from Drew Tucker who discussed how they broke free from an eating disorder and Austin Channing Brown, the author of I’m still here, who spoke about breaking free from systems of oppression and then from Sianna, a youth from the ELCA told us that nothing can separate us from the love of God, so be free to be yourself!
After the Mass Gathering, we took a walk down Bourbon Street - New Orleans’s famous Mardi Gras Parade street. We visited a Voodoo shop because it was open and pretty much the only thing we could get into without being 21… The street’s famous balconies were beautiful and don’t worry, Pastor Ryan and Pastor Brian were there to make sure we all made it home safely!
We stopped by Cafe Du Monde - a 24 hour coffee shop that sells the famous New Orleans Beignets for a sugar rush on our walk back to the hotel. It was delicious and we knew we were going to come back the next day!
Day 4: Created to be Disruptive
Today we got up and had Bible study and breakfast and then went straight to Cafe Du Monde and the famous French Market Collonade Shops!
It was the hottest day of the week - probably 97 degrees and 95% humidity. But that didn’t stop us from touring the French Quarter and doing some shopping!
Cafe Du Monde was very busy but there was a jazz band playing on the sidewalk while we sipped our water, iced coffees and ate our beignets.
Beignets are like donuts, fried and delicious! They have tons of powdered sugar on them and we all loved them.
We then went to our Synod Day where we got to worship with the other groups from the New England Synod and with our new Bishop, Nathan.
After worship, we tried to go to the NBA store where the New Orleans Pelicans have gear on sale. But, it was closed even though the website said it was open. That was a major disappointment.
We went to get New Orleans po-boys for dinner. A Po-Boy is like a sandwich, we might call it a grinder.
At the Mass Gathering the theme was CREATED TO BE DISRUPTIVE and we heard from the first female pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land. Her name is Sally Azar who said that we are each created to be a disruption - which means that we are to live our lives to the fullest knowing that God calls us to make waves and have fun changing the world.
We spent the night playing a card game called Egyptian Rat Screw and then did our Final 15 and went to bed.
Day 5: Created to be Disciples
On our last Day of the Youth Gathering we learned that each of us is a disciple of Jesus! It’s not just the 12 disciples - it’s us too!
We had breakfast and went straight to the Smoothy King stadium for the Youth Gathering’s closing worship service. Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton was the preacher and she summed up the week this way: “We’ve been brave, authentic, free and disruptive this week - now we are going home to keep it up and be disciples!”
We had lots of fun at the closing worship because we were sitting a box suite!! It was lovely to have a sink with cold water right at our seats. It was also the closest we got to the stage throughout the week because we didn’t want to show up to the Smoothie King center at like 3pm every day…
After worship we got to tour Mardi Gras World - an artist workshop and warehouse that creates the massive floats that you see pictured in Mardi Gras parades! Did you know there are hundreds of Mardi Gras parades beginning in January and going all the way through Lent? And each parade is sponsored by a civic social organization called a “Crew” and by city ordinance no float can feature in two parades per season…? It was really cool to learn about all this and see some artists at work on this year’s newest additions!
We then had dinner at a restaurant near our hotel and tried Grits - a cornmeal and butter based side.
Since the youth gathering had ended with the closing worship, we hung out in our hotels that evening and packed up for our trip home the next day.
Despite all the disruption from the Microsoft Technology going down, our flight from New Orleans to Charlotte was on time and we were only delayed a couple of hours in Charlotte - which meant I was frantically looking for hotels in case we were canceled and gave everyone else some good time to play Egyptian Rat Screw again!
“Thank you everyone for supporting our trip to the Youth Gathering!”
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