Young Adults Hold LWF Pre-Assembly in Dresden

Over 120 Participants Expected

GENEVA, 28 June 2010 (LWI) - Over 120 young Lutherans from the 140 member churches of The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) will gather from 11 to 17 July in Dresden, Germany, to prepare for the LWF Eleventh Assembly convening the following week. The Assembly is the organization’s highest decision-making body, meeting every six years.

The Pre-Assembly Youth Conference (PAYC) will take up the Assembly theme “Give Us Today Our Daily Bread.” This concerns not only the question of food security but also broad religious and social issues such as HIV and AIDS, illegitimate debt and climate change.

All PAYC participants will also be in Stuttgart for the Assembly, either as delegates or stewards. They are preparing themselves in earnest in order to be able to effectively represent their interests among church leaders and dignitaries. “These young people so far only know each other in their own regions or through the Internet. This conference is an opportunity for them to become better acquainted and to be able to play a more significant role in Stuttgart,” said Rev. Roger Schmidt , youth secretary at the LWF Department for Mission and Development in Geneva, Switzerland. The LWF has set a quota of 20 percent representation of young people in its governing bodies.

The main feature of PAYC will be the open floor discussions or “open space sessions,” in which participants will identify issues they feel should be given priority by the LWF. Schmidt says he cannot predict what these outcomes will be: “We take young adults seriously by not imposing topics in advance. They are the players in this process.”

There will also be workshops to draft a position paper to elaborate lobbying strategies and to discuss the theology of the LWF. LWF General Secretary Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko and the LWF vice president for the African region, Bishop Dr Zephania Kameeta of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia (ELCRN) will take part in the youth conference.

Schmidt says that there will of course be room in the schedule for becoming better acquainted with one another and the local surroundings. “We have youth from the four corners of the earth here. We must take advantage of that to find cohesion and forge contacts,” he added. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony is organizing a program presenting the host church and the region.

The homily at the opening worship on 11 July will be delivered by the bishop of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany Ilse Junkermann, in Dresden’s “Dreikönigskirche” [Church of the Three Kings]. (434 words)

Journey | Youth Pre-Assembly Conference

28.06.2010

Young Adults Hold LWF Pre-Assembly in Dresden

Over 120 Participants Expected

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