wfn.org | Lutheran Youth Workers Learn it Is "Okay to Be Hungry"

[news@ELCA.ORG]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

March 8, 2001

LUTHERAN YOUTH WORKERS LEARN IT IS "OKAY TO BE HUNGRY"
01-046-JS/MR*

     SAN DIEGO (ELCA) -- Efrem Smith, Minneapolis, told youth workers
it's "okay" for them to be "hungry" at the fifth annual Youth Ministry
Network Extravaganza of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
(ELCA) held here Feb. 9-12.
     "It's okay to be hungry.  The issue is where are you going to
eat," Smith told more than 730 youth workers -- paid and volunteer,
pastors and lay people -- at the Extravaganza, which featured speakers,
workshops and music.  Smith is executive director for the Park Avenue
Foundation, Minneapolis.  He also serves as a youth pastor at Park
Avenue Church, Minneapolis.
     Whether ministering in rural or suburban areas, with those of
varying ethnicities or economic status, people who work with youth face
evil forces, Smith said.  "At times in our family life or ministry we
have said, 'I know God is real.  Where is God?'"
     Smith told youth workers to attend to their own intimacy with God.
"If you want to be effective in youth ministry, start with an intimacy,
a daily meal with God.  God is moving in your ministry, but you have to
eat," he said.
     Smith prescribed the same advice as those who advocate for a
healthy food diet.  "Start early; eat breakfast.  Pace yourself and make
time for God; don't eat too fast.  Feed your faith in a variety of ways;
follow a well-balanced meal," he said.
     The Rev. Roland D. Martinson, a professor of pastoral care and the
Carrie Olson
Baalson professor of children, youth and family ministry, Luther
Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., and member of the National Council on Family
Relations, received the first "Tom Hunstad Award" at the Extravaganza.
Hunstad, one of the founders of the ELCA Youth Ministry Network and its
first president, told participants at last year's Extravaganza that he
had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer.  Hunstad died in
November 2000, and the Tom Hunstad Award was established.  The award
will honor those who have made a significant impact on youth ministry in
the ELCA.  A scholarship award, started by Hunstad but named in memory
of him following his death, has also been established to help youth
workers attend the Extravaganza and other youth ministry training
events.
     "Dr. Rollie Martinson wrote the book on youth ministry within the
Lutheran church -- literally," said Todd Buegler, president, ELCA Youth
Ministry Network.  "Martinson has been doing this stuff for so long that
I would venture to guess that most of the people in this room were not
even born when he began.   He speaks all over the country, and I have
never walked away from a conversation with Rollie without feeling better
about the work that I do."
     Other speakers at the Extravaganza were Lorraine Monroe, executive
director and founder of the School Leadership Academy at the Center for
Education and Innovation, New York; Mike Yaconelli, Yreka, Calif.,
co-founder and owner of Youth
Specialities, an international organization that trains and provides
resources for more than 100,000 youth workers worldwide; and Dick
Hardel, executive director of the Youth and Family Institute, Augsburg
College, Minneapolis.   Melissa Maxwell-Doherty, campus pastor,
California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, delivered a sermon at
closing worship, and Ken Medema, San Francisco, provided music.
     Workshop topics ranged from urban youth ministry to "real
questions" young people are asking society today.
     "This was one of the best youth worker gatherings I've been to,
and I've been to a lot of them," said Linda Rambow, a youth worker in
Lindstrom, Minn., for 17 years.  She said Efrem Smith sparked "fire and
imagination," and he provided the "spiritual food we needed."
     The ELCA Youth Ministry Network was formed eight years ago.  The
Extravaganza is an annual educational event for Lutheran youth ministry
workers.  About 250 youth leaders attended the first Extravaganza in Las
Vegas in 1997.  More than 850 attended last year's event in St. Louis,
in anticipation of the ELCA Youth Gathering, a national event that
brought together about 45,000 high-school-aged Lutherans.

[*Julie Sevig, Chicago, is editor of the "Congregations and Community"
section of The Lutheran, a magazine of the ELCA.]

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