Kaelie Lund

Kaelie LundKaelie is finishing her senior year and is looking forward to beginning college studying Sociology and Gender Studies. While balancing theater, music and school, Kaelie enjoys longboarding, indie music, thrift stores, being caffeinated, vintage clothing and Audrey Hepburn. She hopes that the Gathering will help to further spirituality, encourage open-mindedness and to spread peace.

Josiah Williams...hip hop artist

Josiah WilliamsJosiah is an aspiring creative artist and a Theater Performance major in college. He grew up in the Lutheran church and in 2009 was elected the African Descent Male Rep for the ELCA's Multicultural Advisory Committee. Josiah is a hip-hop artist and lyrical writer; he recently released "Treading the Path" musical collection, which focuses on growth in self-esteem, friendships/relationships and artistry; it also questions the challenges currently being faced in the hip-hop community.

Rachel Kurtz performing first night in SuperDome

Rachel KurtzThe ELCA Youth Gathering is excited to announce — singer, songwriter, guitarist, wife, mother, sister, friend, daughter, speaker, leader and artist Rachel Kurtz will be performing in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Opening Night of the Gathering, Wednesday, July 18.

Rachel Kurtz is a Minnesota-based singer/songwriter whose distinctive voice infuses her organic instrumentation to wash over and through the listener. Her subtle blend of style reveals folk pop sensibilities with a healthy dose of soul. Audiences across the country resonate with Rachel’s music. It gets inside of people, calls them friend, and lets them know they are not alone. Citizens with the Saints, get ready to sing with Rachel!  Here is link to listen to the gifted — Rachel Kurtz! Visit http://www.rachelkurtz.com/

Shane Claiborne!!

Shane Claiborne
The ELCA Youth Gathering is thrilled to welcome to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome author, activist, speaker and recovering sinner, Shane Claiborne! Shane Claiborne will speak to the risks of practicing discipleship. Shane is the co-founder of the Simple Way, a faith community in inner-city Philadelphia that has helped to birth and connect radical faith communities around the world. His ministry experience is varied, from a 10-week stint working alongside Mother Teresa in Calcutta, to a year spent serving a wealthy mega-congregation at Willow Creek Community Church outside of Chicago. Shane is the author of several books including The Irresistible Revolution, Jesus for President and Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers.

Pastor Andrena Ingram to speak...

The Rev. Andrena IngramShe was homeless. She thought she was going to die from AIDS. Now she is an ELCA pastor and AIDS activist who will be sharing her story as one of the keynote speakers in the Superdome. Meet the Rev. Andrena Ingram, a citizen with the saints! Pastor Andrena will inspire and ignite us to practice justice every day. Check out this article about how God is at work through her life and ministry!

Donald Miller---Blue Like Jazz

Donald Miller is perhaps best known as the author of Blue Like Jazz, a New York Times-bestseller that’s inspired many to reexamine the way they think about religion, Christianity, and the nature of a relationship with God.  The book is made up of Miller’s “nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality,” as well as his invitingly honest tales and his wry sense of humor.  The book is certainly about how Miller learned to relate to God, but his relationship is decidedly outside the bounds of “traditional” Christian perspectives.  He’s the type of person to explain his view of God in terms of metaphors about penguin sex and cartoons  starring Don Rabbit and the Sexy Carrot.

It’s very appropriate, though, that Don Miller is coming to speak at a Youth Gathering called Jesus, Justice, Jazz, because in a lot of ways, the book presents itself like jazz music.  I’m looking forward to arriving in New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, and hearing from a man who reflected:

There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.

Nadia Bolz-Weber to be one of the Main Speakers in SuperDome

"Nadia Bolz-Weber has probably done more than any other pastor in recent times to poke therapeutic fun at the misdemeanors and flaws of overly-churched Christianity and Christians. The passion behind her words, however, is as deeply pastoral as it is God-drenched and liberating....thus the affection as well as the respect that attend her and her work wherever she goes."

- Phylis Tickle author of "The Great Emergence"

Nadia Bolz-Weber is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, an ELCA mission church in Denver, Colorado. She's a leading voice in the emerging church movement and her writing can be found in The Christian Century and Jim Wallis' God's Politics blog. She is author of "Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television" (Seabury 2008) and the Sarcastic Lutheran blog.

Here's a little taste of what our "Day of Justice" may be like....

Ephesians 2:14-20 (New Revised Standard)

14 For Jesus is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. 15 He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, 16 and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. 17 So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; 18 for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone, holds it all together.

......here's the next challenge:  reply to me:  These verses in a different translation.

......here's a BONUS challenge:  What do these verses mean to you???