ROAD REPORT: YOUTH CONFERENCE, ATLANTA GA

Dear Friends,

I've just returned from the last of a series of youth conferences held over the summer in Steubenville, Ohio, Alexandria, Louisiana, St. Louis, Missouri, Attleboro, Massachusetts, Denver, Colorado, Tucson, Arizona, and Atlanta, Georgia. The conferences were sponsored by the Franciscan University of Steubenville and local hosting organizations.

I worked at the conferences in Denver and Atlanta, doing a workshop on discipleship, and giving the Saturday evening talk about Mary's "yes" to God.

The Atlanta conference had over 2,000 youth (high school age) in attendance. Over the summer, over 25,000 youth attended these conferences.

It truly was moving to see so many young people sincerely seeking God. There were many moving testimonies from kids who experienced God rescuing them from things that varied from drug addictions, to sexual deviance, from abuse at home to a poor self image. Everywhere, kids were becoming alive in Christ.

Something happened at the Atlanta conference that particularly stands out in my mind.

As part of the Friday evening program, six young adults who work with the conference got up on the stage and did a dramatic reading using snippets of scripture that basically relate the story of salvation history. It is a powerful, profound and deep reading. I had heard it at one of the other conferences earlier this summer.

This night something happened that had not happened at any of the other conferences. About two thirds of the way through the reading, the readers were speaking about the Jubilee, and the visitation of God in our day. It was totally unexpected and unplanned for, but throughout the tent, high school students quietly began to clap...then they began standing up. They were excited about the good news that was being proclaimed to them!

The readers were a little surprised to see this reaction to the reading. As the crowd in the meeting tent got louder, the readers had to pick up their volume to be heard. They proclaimed with a renewed energy and fervor. This only got the crowd more excited, which by now was on its feet, cheering, and giving praise to God. The readers were equal to the task and bellowed out the final lines of their message. Everyone exploded in thunderous applause and cheers as the proclamation came to an end.

Then an anointed silence came upon the assembly as the readers left the stage, and one could feel the Lord of the Jubilee present in our midst. The readers were visibly moved by what had happened as were the conference organizers. Over 2,000 youth stood in a "holy agitation" as they reverberated with the good news that they had heard.

What I saw that night really touched me, but it also challenged me. When was the last time I (or any of my contemporaries) spontaneously stood up and cheered as the Word of God was being proclaimed? When was the last time I was so moved by the message of Good News that I could not help but clap and weep? May God give me the grace to do that again!

I left the youth conference with a renewed hope for the Church in the New Millennium. As I told one of the young guys as we were leaving... "I know the Church will be O.K. as long as you are in it!"

May God bless His Church and the young Christians of the 21st Century.

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