Title: ELCA YOUTH GATHERING FOR THE YEAR 2000
ELCA NEWS SERVICE - NEWSBRIEF
April 24, 1996
ELCA YOUTH GATHERING IN 2000
More high-school aged youth of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America will be able to attend the church's triennial youth
gathering in the year 2000. The ELCA's Division for
Congregational Ministries (DCM) approved "in principle" moving to
two back-to-back events beginning with the 2000 gathering.
"River of Hope," the July 23-27, 1997 National Youth Gathering
will bring 35,000 youth to New Orleans. With two events
registration could be set at 20,000-22,000 participants per
gathering, said Ann Luther, the gathering's operations manager.
The time frame might look like this:
* Wednesday - Sunday -- gathering number one;
* Sunday - Wednesday -- Multicultural Youth Leadership Event
and the Differently Abled Leadership Event; and
* Wednesday - Sunday -- gathering number two.
The youth gathering has grown so large that only two cities can
currently accommodate it -- Atlanta and New Orleans. The 1994
event was held in Atlanta. Thousands more people have registered
for the events each time than there was room to accommodate. The
move to back-to-back gatherings "allows us to grow," said Luther,
and "increase the number of participants." In a separate action,
the DCM board also voted to bring the entire office of the
National Youth Gathering to Chicago by the end of 1997. Part of
the gathering staff currently works in Minneapolis.
For information contact: Ann Hafften, Dir., ELCA News Service,
(312) 380-2958; Frank Imhoff, Assoc. Dir., (312) 380-2955; Lia
Christiansen, Asst. Dir., (312) 380-2956
