by Jason Hoyt

 

This summer nine youth from Zion, plus two more guests (more on that below), will be going to the LCMS National Youth Gathering. The gathering is held every 3 years in various locations around the United States. Past host cities have included Atlanta, Denver, New Orleans and San Antonio, among others. This year the gathering will be held for the first time ever in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The gathering will be held from July 11^th through 15^th and, our team will stay in town one extra day. We’ll use that day to share some time together, “inwardly digest” the events of those few days, and also tack on a trip to Mall of America for some fun social time as well. While not yet determined exactly, the congregation can expect a special presentation by our youth and counselors soon after we return to share with you a small portion of our experience.

 

The National Youth Gathering is an awesome and huge event and will see approximately 25,000 youth and another 5,000 adults (counselors and staff) all in downtown Minneapolis, and mostly within walking distance of U.S. Bank Stadium, the new home of the NFL Vikings that opened in 2016. The event will start on the evening of July 11^th with a “mass event” inside U.S. Bank Stadium where all participants will gather to kick off the weekend. Each evening of the gathering will also end with a mass event at the stadium. On the morning of the 15^th there will be a closing service at the stadium, again attended by all participants. During the three days between the opening and closing events there will be conferences held in the nearby convention center. There are four conference sessions per day, and there are far more conferences available (dozens available) than one can attend in the three days. There are a wide variety of topics and speakers at these conferences, and there is easily “something for everyone” all weekend long.

 

Of special note, for this year’s gathering, Zion will also be hosting two youth from St. John’s Lutheran Church in Aurora, IN. Their two youth are very excited about this opportunity to attend the gathering, and we are very excited to be able to partner with another church and welcome their youth into our Zion family. The youth from St. John’s have already been to Zion for a Sunday School and late service as well as the MLK weekend lock-in, held on January 19^th. They are planning to come to some other events between now and this summer so our youth can build those bonds that will help all share in the gathering experience as part of the Zion Family. In total, we will have eleven youth and four chaperones going to the gathering.

 

At this time our ask from the Zion congregational family is quite simple, and just the same as in 2016, please PRAY. Pray that we WORSHIP through our words and deeds during any activity. Pray we LEARN through all of these experiences. And, lastly, pray that our youth and leaders continue to GROW. We look to grow in our understanding of each-other, in our own personal lives as they are enriched, and most importantly we want to GROW in our faith and understanding of Him who provides all these great things and who brought us to hope, salvation, and eternal life.

by Chris Graves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are reading this article, that means you have found our new website. You may have already spent some time browsing through it and have started a list of your likes and dislikes. I hope there are many more likes than dislikes.

 

Maybe, more than anything, you are wondering why the change. Why put all the time and effort into something new when our old website was just fine? Fine. My least favorite word.

 

Dictionary.com defines the word fine as, “of superior or best quality; of high or highest grade”; however, in our culture today fine rarely has that meaning. One definition urbandictiontionary.com states, “A word to use when you’re depressed but you don’t want to worry another person.” It really means not fine, not okay, not good, average, below average, leave me alone. It’s something we say when we don’t want to engage. We want to hide or be left alone. If you’ve had a disagreement with your spouse or significant other and they say, “it’s fine.” You should be worried, right.

 

My point is that we don’t want to be fine. We, as the church, want to engage. We want to excel. We want to be Christ-like. We want our website to be a place to draw individuals in.

 

We want a visitor to see our website and see who we are – a place full of loving, welcoming people – and want to come see this place for themselves. We want our members to find ways to connect and become involved with others. Overall, we want this new website to draw people together to share the love of Christ.

 

In conclusion, I hope you find that our new website not only looks pretty with all the fancy photos, but that it will direct to what you are looking for – information, information, information. Whether you are looking for worship times, Bible studies, youth events or ways to get involved. The plan is to use this new website as a communication tool so that everyone is sufficiently informed about the events and happenings of the church. I welcome constructive criticism as to what is needed or missing that will help with this communication. So, please take a look around and hopefully, you will find it engaging and so much more than fine!