EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2021 I began a new venture writing a newspaper column titled "Finding Faith" for the Forum Communications Co. network of newspapers and websites. I was asked to contribute to the company's ongoing conversation about faith, lending a Lutheran and fairly ecumenical approach to the discussion. The column was published in several of the company's papers and websites, including The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. This column originally appeared as a "Finding Faith" column on July 26, 2024.
By The Rev. Devlyn Brooks
I’ve now attended two national Youth Gatherings sponsored by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and what I have found the most similar in the events is the emotional journey the youth experience throughout the week.
I have twice witnessed the Gathering take a group of youth who have a certain chemistry, a dynamic formed from years of familiarity with each other, and then through challenging emotional and spiritual experiences, the Gathering pulls that group apart, only to sew them all together again by the time the group arrives home a week later.
Watching this take place reminds me of a spiritual process described by a mystic Catholic priest I follow as: order, disorder and reorder.
In other words, we arrive at an experience, our faith having been formed through a myriad of forces, which we would call “order,” only to have our set of assumptions about our faith disrupted, or “disordered” by the experience. And then at the conclusion of it all, thanks to the Gathering, we inevitably find ourselves “reordered,” our assumptions about our faith having changed in some way for the better. Some spiritual growth has been obtained.
A reader asked me last week what I thought of these large mass gathering-type faith events, likening them to a mega-church worship experience. With some reflection upon our return this week, this is what I’ve come to believe: I’ve now watched two groups of youth from our church, six years apart, undergo very similar spiritual reorderings at the ELCA’s Youth Gathering.
Do I know that this reordering of faith will last a lifetime in each of these students?
No, not for certain. But youth who attended the 2018 Gathering with me still bring up the event as a highlight of their youth faith formation. So, that seems a pretty good indication that the Gathering has a positive impact.
What’s that worth? … Maybe it’s too soon to tell.
However, attend a Gathering and you’ll see a level of devotion among its staff and volunteers that borders on fanaticism. And I’m willing to bet that their love for the event started as a youth who attended one.
This naturally leads me to wonder how many people’s faith have been shaped by their experiences at an ELCA Gathering, or some other similar large youth faith event sponsored by another church denomination.
Maybe that number isn’t quantifiable, which is entirely possible. But I am certain that the experience changes youth even if it is imperceptible.
Worshiping for almost a week with 16,000 other teenagers enthusiastically celebrating their faith, while experiencing the culture of a new city and region of the country has to be a wonderful petri dish for spiritual change … even if it takes many years to produce fruit.
Devlyn Brooks is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and serves Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com.
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