wfn.org | "Feast" NCCCUSA Young Adult Ministry Training

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the 
U.S.A.
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
Email: news@ncccusa.org
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227

56NCC6/8/98    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

YOUNG ADULTS FROM ACROSS THE NATION 
"COME TO THE FEAST"

by Kelly Holton, Associate Editor
Wesleyan Christian Advocate*

ATLANTA, Ga., May 25 --- A Memorial Day weekend 
conference in Atlanta took young adults and young 
adult leaders across denominational lines to 
celebrate their common ministries and enhance 
efforts to reach young people with the message of 
Christ.
"Come to the Feast," an ecumenical training event 
sponsored by the Young Adult Ministry Team of the 
National Council of Churches, offered participants 
the chance to see the best in young adult ministry 
around the country. Through workshops, service 
projects, shared music and worship opportunities, 
those at the event came together as the body of 
Christ to share their stories of faith and learn 
creative, effective ways to be in ministry to young 
adults.
The ecumenical nature of the gathering helped 
Tambitha Blanks understand more about similarities 
than differences. For Blanks, a member of a 
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) young adult 
fellowship in Fort Myers, Fla., one of the most 
meaningful experiences of the event was "seeing we 
all serve one God. Everybody is enriched and 
fulfilled in the their way of serving God."
Bible study leader Dr. Minka Sprague, professor of 
Old Testament and biblical languages at New York 
Theological Seminary, also looked for common ground 
in her studies throughout the event. She sees the 
Bible as a tool that "anchors us in space and time 
and waits for us to get relevant so we can see the 
words. We need to find ways to read it together."
Sprague, a deacon in the Episcopal Church, argues 
that finding common ways to read scripture will go a 
long way toward making members of different faith 
traditions one body in Christ. Her studies for the 
event included a walk through the creation story of 
Genesis 1:1-2:3 "to talk about how finely tuned 
God's design is." 
Sprague noted that humans are the only creatures 
not named for their movement; we are named instead 
for being made in the image of God. "We are each of 
us only half an image of God," she said. "We are 
designed ... to be with each other and looking for 
the other in all sorts of ways."
Looking for the other and making room for others 
requires Christians to follow Jesus' example of 
living life as a guest, argues Sprague.
"He does his life as guest," she said. "He is our 
guest as the Christ. We are called to be incarnate 
like him. To do that we have to change our concept 
of hospitality. It's not our party even when it 
looks like it is.
"In creation, like Jesus, we are the guest. ... To 
be the guest, we are to take the stillness of the 
image ... and be with God in creation. Then we can 
give it out and walk it forward and be the body of 
Christ."
The image of the guest was played out in the 
training event's theme, "Come to the Feast," and in 
the array of workshops, service opportunities and 
times for worship and fellowship offered to the 
diverse group. More than 240 participated, sharing 
their methods and ideas for effective ministry with 
young adults. Workshops dealt with matters ranging 
from living out faith at work, challenging racism,  
and spiritual nurture for the self to the nuts and 
bolts of building a young adult and college ministry 
and the challenges for reaching the post-modern 
generation and making ecumenism work at the local 
level.
Leadership for the event came from 10 
denominations: African Methodist Episcopal, American 
Baptist Churches, Christian Church (Disciples of 
Christ), Church of the Brethren, Episcopal Church, 
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, General 
Conference Mennonite Church, Presbyterian Church, 
USA, United Church of Christ and United Methodist 
Church.  Participants at the workshop represented 
all these faith traditions (except Mennonite), with 
the addition of one Southern Baptist, several 
Catholics and a member of the Lutheran Church in 
Zimbabwe.
Service opportunities allowed participants to get 
to know each other and Atlanta in a more intimate 
way. The Rev. Thomas Rice, associate pastor of 
Westminster Presbyterian Church in DeKalb, Ill., 
helped paint a hallway at the William Holmes Borders 
House, a community home for men recovering from drug 
addiction.
"As a young adult minister to young adults, I feel 
service projects are essential," said Rice. "They 
build community; they inspire and they teach."
The service opportunities -- another group washed 
windows at the Salvation Army Booth Towers -- gave 
participants a chance to make the ideas they learned 
during the conference more meaningful, said Liz 
Bidgood, who along with fellow Church of the 
Brethren member and Richmond, Ind., seminary student 
Greg Enders, coordinated the service projects. 
 "I think we show our faith through our actions. As 
Christ has welcomed us, we welcome others. It's important 
to learn and discuss topics, but Jesus was a  man of 
action. It wasn't enough for Jesus to just talk about 
God. I think we're called to live out our faith."
Keynote speaker Andrew Young also called on the group 
to live out their faith, recognizing that young adulthood 
is a time "when things get stirred up and ... something 
upsets the tranquility. Out of struggle comes success."
Young encouraged those in ministry with young adults 
to open themselves to new ways of making the message of 
Jesus relevant and appealing to young people. He said the 
problems of this generation are, in his view, largely 
spiritual, resulting from an inability to find meaning in 
life.
"The challenge of our ministry is to create over 
McDonald's hamburgers and French fries a sacramental 
situation. Let young people know God is present in the 
midst of them."
The grace of God will lead young people through the 
turbulence and trouble of the times, said Young. "There's 
nothing you can't understand in faith."
The Rev. Minerva Carcano, a United Methodist pastor 
and director of the Mexican American Program at the 
Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist 
University in Dallas, Texas, also spoke of the troubling 
times that face  all Christians, times when one can do 
nothing but yearn for the presence of Jesus. In her 
sermon during the closing worship service, Carcano 
described one such time in her own life. During a second 
miscarriage in the fourth month of pregnancy, this one on 
Christmas Eve, she was placed alone in an operating room 
to await the procedure that would terminate her 
pregnancy.
Carcano prayed, she said, because pray was all she 
could do. She felt the comforting presence of Jesus and 
also the loving presence of nurses she knew from her 
congregation. These women, Carcano learned later, were 
not scheduled to work Christmas Eve, but a shortage of 
nurses brought them in.  For Carcano, this beautiful 
mystery is proof of Jesus' divine help to her in a period 
of bleak darkness and the need for Christian community 
that should extend even beyond denominational boundaries.
"It is together that we will discern the presence of 
Jesus on our journey of faith," she said. "There will 
come moments when Jesus just appears. He'll explode our 
expectations. He'll shatter structures that feel really 
comfortable to you and me."
As a leader of an ecumenical ministry in New Mexico, 
Carcano learned first hand the beauty that can emerge 
when familiar structures like denominational identity are 
stripped away. She says the experience changed her 
ministry, as she watched "mean, crusty Christians" open 
their hearts and their churches to others.
"There are things that can only be learned 
collectively," she said.
"The journey of faith is lived out in community. We 
help each other to see Jesus. We nurture, support, love 
and affirm each other's discipleship. As we journey, 
Jesus will be with us."
-end-
*The Wesleyan Christian Advocate is the official 
newsweekly for United Methodists in Georgia.
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