by Joe Davis

Juneteenth commemorates a day when my ancestors could breath a little more freely. On June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, enslaved Africans were read federal orders that they were freed, even though the Emancipation Proclamation was signed over two years prior. They didn’t know they were free because, in spite of the law, they were still brutalized by those who weaponized power. This was this liberatory announcement that initiated the joyful reunion of long-separated loved ones and the work of reconstructing after centuries of being held down by the harsh American slave system. 

Today, families of African descent throughout the United States celebrate this Freedom Day, which gave us a brief moment to inhale deeper than before. However, as a Black artist and educator living in Minneapolis, MN during an uprising that has sparked freedom demonstrations around the world, I know that oppressive powers have only shifted their weight on the necks of vulnerable Black bodies as we cried out to breathe. 

I can only imagine how profoundly the Giver of all life and breath (1) must become enraged and grief-stricken every time the breath in our bodies is snuffed out by violent power. But I needn’t imagine this response, as Jesus incarnated this reality when he protested abusive authority decrying those holding power through violence as hypocrites and snakes (2) and damaged temple property when it was being valued more than the humanity of his people (3). Although divisive and controversial to corrupt religious leaders and exploitative lawmakers, Jesus embodied a form of justice not rooted in revenge or retribution, but instead in restoration and healing. Even though he could have commanded an army of angels to battle on his behalf (4) his love for the most vulnerable was held so deeply in his body that he lived and died among them in a communion of shared vulnerability. Jesus gave his all, his last breath, to empower them, and to empower us, to rise again. His desire was that we would all be freed from the grips of power-hoarding, death-dealing systems and breathe in the abundance of life-affirming community. 

Jesus intensely understood the soul wound and how violence, at its core, is a spilling over of trauma and suffering from one body to another. Resmaa Manekem, body-centered therapist and author of My Grandmother’s Hand: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, describes the soul wound as trauma routinely passed on from person to person and from generation to generation. The only way to stop the cyclical pattern is not punitive force but reparative action and a commitment to the practice and process of healing. This calls for the healing of the oppressor and the oppressed, as stated by Dr. Joi Lewis, Twin Cities healer, author, and founder of the Healing Justice Foundation. Dr Lewis states, “Oppression is not an inevitable state of affairs and no human being would agree to oppress another person or agree to be oppressed if they weren’t already hurt.” 

The wounds of violence reach the innermost essence of our beings, it viscerally impacts our flesh and becomes ritualized in every part of society and culture from policing to politics. When we heal the systems that live inside of us, then we can also heal the systems that live outside of us. And that is the path to collective liberation that Jesus calls us all to embody (5). 

Juneteenth, also known as Jubilee Day, speaks to this call, an ancestral echo of the struggle for freedom heard in the litany of voices throughout history. If we listen, we can hear it resonating in the song of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam—among countless other scriptural leaders —organizing themselves and their people to escape the slave system of pharaohs and kings who denied their demands for human dignity until death was too close to home (6). Once their lungs were no longer constricted by the tyrannical rule of empire, they had enough space to breathe new life into prophetic visions of Jubilee, where prisoners could be liberated, debts forgiven, and the land renewed (7). 

I long to live in a world not of crippling dependence on guns and cages as lethal enforcers of systemic injustice, but a world where our bodies and our institutions rise with the deep, slow rhythms of healing. We don’t live in that world yet, but it’s worth working for with every breath we have.

Joe Davis is a nationally-touring artist, educator, and speaker based in Minneapolis, MN, whose work employs poetry, music, theater, and dance to shape culture. He is the Founder and Director of multimedia production company, The New Renaissance, the frontman of emerging soul funk band, The Poetic Diaspora, and qualified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory. He has keynoted, facilitated conversation, and served as teaching artist at hundreds of high schools and universities including New York, Boston, and most recently as the Artist-in-Residence at Luther Seminary where he received a Masters in Theology of the Arts.

1: Genesis 2:7 (CEB) the Lord God formed the human from the topsoil of the fertile land and blew life’s breath into his nostrils. The human came to life. 

2: Matthew 23 (CEB) Jesus Calls Out the Legal Experts and Religious Leaders; Matthew 12:34 (CEB) Children of snakes! How can you speak good things while you are evil? What fills the heart comes out of the mouth. 

3: Matthew 21: 12 (CEB) Then Jesus went into the temple and threw out all of those who were selling and buying there. He pushed over the tables used for currency exchange and the chairs of those who sold doves. 

4: Psalms 91:12 and Matthew 4:6 

5: Luke 17:20-21Pharisees asked Jesus when God’s kingdom was coming. He replied, God’s kingdom isn’t coming with signs that are easily noticed. Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is!’ Or ‘There is!’ Don’t you see? God’s kingdom is already among you. 

6: Exodus 12:29-50 

7: Leviticus 25: 8-18

It has been 3 weeks since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the city in which I call home. Unfortunately, the senseless killings perpetuated from racism are not uncommon. The outcry for justice, though, has been very common across the United States and countries throughout the world.

The George Floyd memorial on 38^th and Chicago in Minneapolis is holy ground where people gather. Gather to pay their respects, gather to lay down flowers, gather with advocacy organizations and gather around food and water. The words and artwork are a balm for the wounds that I, a white woman, cannot even begin to imagine.

The past couple weeks, I have spent time volunteering at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church just blocks from the epicenter. Since George Floyd’s murder, Holy Trinity has become a sanctuary for demonstrators, a medic station for the wounded, a place of support for local small businesses and a pop-up food and necessity distribution site. Streets have been lined with cars with donations and greeters. Pregnant women and people with disabilities were accompanied, to ensure their needs were met. I heard so many touching stories over the week. One of them that stood out, especially as a youth minister, is the confirmation students who purchased detergent and collected all the quarters they could find, so people could still do their laundry.

Something else that stuck out to me is seeing a mother taking pictures of her daughter in her cap and gown. I went over and started talking to her and she said, “this is her history.” I pray for this young woman and her family. I also pray for our community, our country. I pray that this moment and these pictures are the time that she can tell her children and grandchildren that this was the turning point in our history. “God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).

Kris Bjorke serves as the Service Learning Project Manager for the 2021 ELCA Youth Gathering. She lives in the Minneapolis area and enjoys drinking coffee with friends, being with family and pets, the outdoors, football and hockey games, travel (with a special affinity for National Parks) and quilting.

by: Adam Knudson

I am an ordained pastor and serve on staff at a Lutheran Church, but I am not an ordained ELCA pastor. My background is Presbyterian. My first Gathering experience was in New Orleans for the 2009 Gathering, Jesus Justice Jazz. I didn’t know what to expect. I’d never been to Louisiana before, I’d never attended such a large youth event before, I was afraid of what it would be like to lead a group of a couple dozen youth and adults around a city that I had never visited. Why did I agree to do this anyway?

Our church is in California and while there are MANY churches and many large churches in California, there are not a lot of Lutherans and even fewer large Lutheran churches. Attending the Gathering offers the youth from my church an opportunity to understand their place and their identity within a larger community. When the ELCA gathers tens of thousands of youth from across the country and beyond, some of our best values and our highest priorities are showcased, highlighted and lived in vibrant and compelling ways. 

When our youth attend the Gathering, I don’t need to teach a lesson, read a Bible story, or prepare a class on what we believe or how God calls us to live in the world. The core values of our faith are written large on giant screens, crowded buses full of folks with bright orange shirts ready to serve, and youth and adults willing to listen to the stories of our hosts as we enter their communities and their cities.

The ELCA Youth Gathering has opened my mind to understand the great breadth and depth of what it means to be Lutheran. The Gathering has given me a chance to share this perspective with our youth, to hold up their faith as a mirror in which they can see who they are and in turn, our youth return home and share stories with our congregation. For me, the Gathering is an opportunity to participate in the kin-dom of God and to recognize God’s family as a place where I belong.

Adam Knudson has served as Youth Pastor at Hope Lutheran in Fresno, CA for thirteen years. He is involved in youth ministry networks in his community and Synod.

by: Claire Embil

This week, I had the opportunity to preach about the Baptism of our Lord in Matthew chapter 3. This is a story that perfectly exemplifies God’s boundlessness. Jesus is claimed by God as the beloved son before he has accomplished anything, no healing, no miracles.

In today’s society, it’s so easy to only present the image of ourselves that we want the world to see, and our worth becomes tied to clicks, likes and views. You could be smart, talented, beautiful, but the world says, “Ok, prove it.” I think a lot about how radical and spectacular it is to be claimed as beloved without having to prove yourself. We don’t have to prove ourselves for baptism. God’s grace knows no qualifications.

There is nothing we have to do, that could make us worthy of the love and grace that God extends to us through baptism. It is important to strive to be our best selves, but God already thinks we are worthy and beloved. God promises us this undeserved, unconditional, unending grace that we never had to earn because baptism is not about our commitment to God. Baptism is about God’s commitment to us.

That main theme of this text is particularly important to me because it took me a long time to learn. Back when I was getting confirmed, I think I did so begrudgingly, and not because I didn’t want to be confirmed. I very much did, but because I knew that confirmation is the affirmation of baptism.

I was baptized in the Catholic church and my family didn’t come to a Lutheran church until I was 2. The closer we got to Confirmation Day, the more I felt a nagging sense that I didn’t belong. As we talked more about our baptismal promises, I began to talk to my pastors and my youth leaders about getting re-baptized. I very quickly found out that’s not an option. Jesus wasn’t baptized Lutheran so why did I have to be? I knew that we “acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins,” but I still wanted to be re-baptized. I felt like I had to do something to fit into this family. It took me a little bit to learn that anything I thought I could’ve done was already done for me through the waters of baptism, the first time. No repeat needed.

Claire Embil is a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying English creative writing, religious studies and photography. She is actively involved with the ELCA Young Adult Leadership team, the ELCA Youth Gathering, Wisconsin Campus Ministry, Lutheran Student Movement, and competitive gymnastics.

by: Amy Wagner

The ELCA Youth Gathering offers a great way for congregations to be a part of the larger church. The Gathering can be quite a financial and faith commitment on the part of the congregation as well as the family, but I strongly believe this event belongs on the timeline of each person’s faith journey. With a solid plan in place, collecting the funding for this experience can be both faith-filled and joyful. 

Set a budget and have a plan

Start with a budget. What can the church budget cover? What will you ask families to pay? Know your goals, jot down ideas on how fundraising will play a part in the preparation of this experience and enjoy the process. I appreciate fundraising opportunities where the young people were able to share about why mountaintop weeks like these are important points in their faith journey.

Have a goal, now what?

Great, you know how much you hope to raise from now until the Gathering. How do you raise money? In one word, ask. Mike Ward has a fabulous resource called the $10,000 Car Wash on MartinsList.org that changed the way I look at fundraising. Martin’s List is a database of original member-created resources for adults who work with young people and is included in your ELCA Network membership. He believes that through fundraisers, you are providing an opportunity for your entire congregation to be part of passing faith on to young people.

Fundraisers can also bond the group together through working for the common goal of sharing the story of why this event is an important part of the ministry and how it impacts the lives of the participants.

Butter Braids, Car Washes, Dinners, Flamingos, Oh My…

Be sure to check your congregation’s policy for fundraising; but there are many great and fun ways to raise money with endless lists on the Internet; like this one, or this one. You can do everything from butter braids to dinners to Dodgeball Tournaments to flamingoes. 

Another way to raise money is by creating opportunities for ongoing relationships when asking for support. This can be through a “Stock Sale” or similarly a bulletin board of envelopes marked with set dollar amounts stuffed with information about trip participants. In a sense you are creating built-in relational prayer partners. Donors not only get to give financially but they also get to know and pray for the participants by name leading up to, during and following the trip. You can get the details of the basic setup of these with a simple Google search. 

Thank Donors

Be sure to thank all of the people that helped get your group to the Gathering. This can be done with handwritten Thank You notes before you leave, postcards on the trip, specialized text messages with a photo during the week and/or a special dinner after your group as returned and so much more. There are many great ways to tell the impact of the experience to let them know how they made this life-changing week possible.

by: Sophia Behrens

What boundless: God beyond measure means to me is such a powerful feeling that it’s difficult to put into words. To have a God that’s boundless is to have a God that accepts and loves us all, no matter what we look like, who we love, or what we’ve done.

It’s to have a God that fills in all the empty spaces and gives each and every one of us the spiritual gifts we need to work together. And it’s to have a God so incredible that we can’t even list all the ways we see God in our lives, because God’s always just there.

As high school students, having God among us and beyond us is so important because we know there’s an endless love, patting our backs on the difficult days and pushing us beyond our limits on the easy ones. God is here with us now and back home with our families, growing our spiritual gifts through everyday life and allowing us to grow these gifts through experiences that also bring us feelings and love beyond measure such as the Gathering and the ELCA Youth Leadership Summit.

Sophia Behrens is a freshman at Valparasio University. Throughout high school, Sophia was active in the ELCA Youth Core Leadership Team, her home congregation and supporting ELCA World Hunger. Sophia was also a part of the 2021 Theme Discernment team for the ELCA Youth Gathering. 

by: Phil Hirsch

For several years I volunteered at a home for children who were very sick. They had HIV and AIDS in a time when there was no good treatment. They would go in and out of the hospital and sometimes, tragically, they died. The limits of their lives were painfully short and those of us who cared for these children we were often overwhelmed by what we experienced.

“In your boundless compassion, console us who mourn.”   So goes the liturgy of the Burial for the Dead.  

“Compassion” is the heart of Jesus’ life, the word literally means ‘to suffer with’ someone. The 13th century theologian Meister Eckhart said that the best name for Jesus might just be “Son of compassion.” 

One day, Jesus met the funeral procession of a man who died and the scripture says he was ‘moved with compassion’ for those who were feeling the deep pain and sorrow of that man’s death. He responded by raising the man from the dead as if to show that not even death can limit God’s love.  

Life is limited, love is not. That is what kept us going at the home for sick children. Love means having deep empathy for others who are hurting. In some cases, I have literally felt another’s hurt in my own body.  

At times when tragedy and life seemed like more than I could possibly handle, I could feel God suffering with me. In the pain of loss, betrayal, loneliness, injury, family distress, or physical injury, it has helped me to remember that God is bigger than what I was facing. When I wasn’t sure or wasn’t feeling it, I could simply pray, “in your boundless compassion.”

Phil Hirsch has served as a pastor for almost 30 years. He currently is the Executive Director for the Domestic Mission Unit of the ELCA in Chicago, IL. He is the former president of Dooley House in Camden, NJ.

by: Elizabeth Peter

“God’s power at work in us can be far more than we dare ask or imagine.”

I couldn’t breathe. It was minutes before I was to be ushered in front of thousands of excited teens for the 2018 ELCA Youth Gathering in Houston, Texas. It would be the most vulnerable I have ever been to such a large crowd of strangers. I felt paralyzed, the words had run out of my head, my heart was pounding, palms sweating, fear course through my veins.

As I waited backstage, a friend walked over, saw the nervousness in my voice and body, grabbed my hands and we prayed. The cacophony of screaming youth dissipated into the background and a calm swept over me. The Holy Spirit was so present and palpable in that moment, that I knew that everything was going to be alright. We said “Amen”, the music came on, I took a breath, I walked into the bright lights and began.

I thought that I was standing up there all alone and vulnerable. But I was actually surrounded by the manifestation of Gods love and grace; I was in the midst of Gods people – feeling the boundlessness of love all around me. In that moment I felt the Holy calm that comes from a life filled with all that God is. The Spirit flowed through me with every breath, it was life giving and freeing.

I had been given a once in a lifetime opportunity to share a story about the limitlessness of Gods grace in our lives. I had the chance to be a part of an amazing experience in the life of our youth, but what I received in return was greater than I could have imagined. I had been given the chance to witness Gods church gathered together, love filling the space from the floor to the ceiling, and grace beyond measure.

Elizabeth Peter is an ELCA Candidate of Word and Sacrament at United Lutheran Seminary. She’s very excited to have served on both the 2015, 2018 Youth Gathering Planning teams, as well as the 2021 Mass Gathering team. She loves to cook, cycle, and sing any chance that she gets!

by: Molly Beck Dean, Gathering Director

In April, a group of creative youth, young adults and adults gathered in Minneapolis to discern the theme for the 2021 Gathering. After reading through 2018 evaluations, listening to locals share about their city and much discussion about the spiritual lives of young people, the theme “boundless: God beyond measure” was chosen.

As I have pondered our theme over the last few months, it speaks to me more and more. It challenges me to think about how big God really is – from creation of the universe to crucifixion for sins, from death defying resurrection to the Spirit that continues to guide us today. It reminds me of the wonders of creation – certainly the beautiful Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota, but also rolling plains, dusty deserts, crashing waves of lakes and oceans, lush forests and majestic mountains. God knows no bounds. God is all powerful and all knowing.

Our theme makes the almost incomprehensible hugeness of God personal. In our scripture verse, Paul writes “I want you to know all about Christ’s love, although it is too wonderful to be measured. Then your lives will be filled with all that God is.” Christ’s love for us is so abundant it can’t be calculated, quantified or even estimated. A love that couldn’t be contained in heaven so God came down and became human. A love so huge it was willing to suffer a gruesome death amongst taunts and jeers. A love so magnificent and glorious that death could not contain it and so Love was resurrected and changed everything humans knew about life, love and forgiveness.

To be honest, I don’t know all about Christ’s love or what it’s like to live a life filled with all that God is. I am bound daily by my sins and weighed down by the struggles of our world. But I have caught glimpses of it. I have stood on the beach and been brought to tears by the beauty and vastness of the ocean God created. I have held each of my new babies and cried because I have been entrusted with two of God’s miracles and in that moment knew a love greater than I could imagine. I have been in worship with a heart so full of the Spirit that my whole body danced in praise and my eyes glistened. I have been brought to my knees and cried the ugly cry over mistakes I’ve made and the wickedness that exists in the world, only to feel a calming in my heart and mind that could only be the forgiveness of God.

These brief moments of being filled with all that God is not only point me to the tissue box evidently, but give me hope for my life and our life together. God doesn’t hoard God’s boundless goodness, but rather shares it with God’s beloved – us – in real ways.

Paul’s words are my prayer for the young people of this Church.  As they prepare for this ministry and as they attend MYLE, the tAble and the Gathering, I hope they get closer to knowing all about Christ’s love and what it can look like and feel like to live a life filled with all that God is.

Molly first attended the Gathering in 1997 and has served at the Gathering in various capacities ever since. She’s worked at the congregational and synodical levels in youth ministry before transitioning to the Gathering Director in 2015. Molly enjoys beaches, spending time with her family and finding the best ice-cream shop in town.

by: Elizabeth Hood

I spend months and months planning before we leave for a Gathering, after I have thought and prepared and over-planned, I lay awake at night…Will they all get along? Will we bond as a group? Will this be worth it?  

We start out nervous and excited but then at some point in the first few days there is this “magic moment.” It’s hard to describe and it always happens when I least expect it. That moment when we shift, the group finds a rhythm and we create community. My heart swells to even think about it.

I have this snapshot in my head of each time it has happened. It doesn’t just happen once, it happens over and over again. The first night we walk into Mass Gathering and the youth see thousands gathering, they realize that this is their community. When they are singing, arm over shoulder, swaying on the floor of the stadium with new friends: community. When they walk through the streets of an unfamiliar city and high five a youth from another state far away: community.

They are deeply impacted by this mass expansion of their circle of community and that word takes on a whole new meaning. They make new friends in an instant and connections that change the course of their lives forever! Life altering connectedness and community! 

These connections to each other and the larger community are priceless, the changes to the youth, profound. When we return home, we aren’t just people in a group, we are a community, connected to a much larger community than most of them had ever realized. They belong, maybe for the first time in their lives, forever woven into this community and it changes everything.

Elizabeth has served her congregation in California for over 10 years, loves camping and traveling around the world. She also leads the Hospitality Team for the Extravaganza and serves on the planning team for the Western States Youth Gathering.