LWF Youth Pre-Assembly Preparatory Group Defines Goals for Full Participation

A Unique Opportunity for the Lutheran Youth Movement

At the invitation of Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Youth, ten young church representatives from the LWF regions gathered on 19-24 February at the John Knox Center in Geneva to lay the groundwork for the 2010 LWF Pre-Assembly Youth Conference. The youth conference will take place 11-17 July 2010 in Dresden,Germany, just days before the LWF Eleventh Assembly.

The Assembly, hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wuerttemberg, will meet in Stuttgart, Germany, 20-27 July 2010with the theme "Give Us Today Our Daily Bread." The preparatory group from LWF member churches in Africa, Asia,Europe, Latin and North America explored various options to equip youth delegates for full participation within the Lutheran communion and at the forthcoming assembly.

"Preparation implies training on how to raise a motion or to ask for the floor at a plenary session, but also things like how not to get lost at an assembly," said Rev. Dr Kjell Nordstokke,director of the LWF Department for Mission and Development (DMD)which houses the LWF Youth desk. "There is a good chance that constitutional changes will be discussed at the Assembly under the topic of LWF’s renewal.

This will have implications for the future involvement of youth." The international planning group articulated visions and goals for the youth pre-assembly, suggesting it should be a "fun" event that would allow all youth delegates to act as confident participants during the main assembly. "When youth opinions and contributions are valued, they [young adults] are enabled to grow, to become fair and open future leaders.

Full youth participation will enrich the work of the LWF," said Ms HeidrunTobler, a theology student from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa. At its 1990 meeting in Curitiba, Brazil, the LWF Assembly decided that at least 20 percent of the delegates to future assemblies should be youth (under 30 years).

"We need to advance from full representation to more participation," said Mr Raymond Ranker from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. LWF Youth secretary Rev. Roger Schmidt affirmed that the"pre-assembly youth conference has traditionally been both a place of preparation and a unique opportunity of self-definition for the Lutheran youth movement."

Schmidt pointed out that the youth desk continues to accompany young people in the member churches through the three-year training program "Engage: LWF Global Training for Young Leaders,"which encourages further reflection on the implications of the Eleventh Assembly theme for the LWF regions.

Over 100 youth delegates and stewards from 54 countries participated in the pre-assembly youth conference near Toronto,Ontario, Canada, just prior to the LWF Tenth Assembly "For the Healing of the World" hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada on 21-31 July 2003 in Winnipeg.

The assembly is the highest decision-making body of the LWF,meeting every six to seven years. At an assembly, delegates from all LWF member churches take major decisions on the organization's future work and direction.