News
New Fire: Young Adult Ecumenical Days, November 8-11, 2008
© Kathleen Cameron
Over 40 young adults from some 17 different church communions, representing 10 young adult ecumenical organizations and initiatives, numerous universities, seminaries and divinity schools, and local churches came together for a three day ecumenical formation event entitled-New Fire. The weekend event, leading up to the NCC General Assembly, included dynamic ecumenical dialogue and discussion, as well as powerful shared prayer and worship experiences (including a Sunday morning worship experience with First Plymouth Congregational Church UCC in Denver). New Fire also included participation from NCC General Secretary, Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, Program Executive for the US Conference for the WCC, Rev. Deborah DeWinter, Director of Marketing and Communications at CWS, Anne Walle, and a few guest ecumenical officers. Participants included representatives from the Young Adult Task Force of the US Conference for the WCC, the Ecumenical Young Adult Ministries Team of the NCC, the World Student Christian Federation, the Council on Ecumenical Student Ministries, the Young Adult Ecumenical Forum, Ecumenical Advocacy Days, Christian Churches Together, the National Catholic Young Adult Ministry Association, the Canadian Student Christian Movement, and others. See testimonies from numerous attendees below from this important young adult gathering, that looks to mark the start of a new and exciting direction for young adult ecumenism throughout the United States, and greater North America!
See the attached program, as well as the joint statment the New Fire young adults presented to the NCC General Assembly on November 11th, 2008!
Statement from Young Adult New Fire Participants (.pdf)
Image © Kathleen Cameron
Hey everyone!
I am already being pulled in so many directions. At the same time, I remember our commitment to staying in touch and reuniting at various ecumenical events.
I can't make a lot of the upcoming events due to prior commitments. I don't think that I am alone in that regard! I hope that all of us can stay in touch through various means as we go where God is leading us!
...remembering the commitment
Several weeks removed from the New Fire event, one of the things that has struck me is how enduring and applicable my memories of the event have been. I constantly find myself saying "Well, I was at this ecumenical formation event a couple weeks ago and..."
Realizing that the theology and spirit of the ecumenical movement have become so central to the various lenses through which I view my faith and ministry have left me feeling really grateful for the opportunity to attend this event and hopeful about the prospects for what will come out of it. I hope and suspect this is true of others as well.
Thanks to everyone who shared in or supported this event.
It is rare that I leave meetings such as this one filled with hope for what we might do together. I often leave feeling personally fulfilled, with a number of personal relationships that I cherish. But there was something different moving in the room this time.
I am, to be sure, filled up personally with the Holy Spirit, and the relationships that I carry with me fill me with great joy. But more than that, I am filled with hope and optimism for what we are all going to do together.
We had the tough conversations over the course of this weekend. And so often, that is where conferences such as this end. But perhaps more inspiring to me was the work that was done on Monday. The creation of the statement, and the online foundation laid for what we are going to do together.
In a world yearning for the church to show them another way of living, the relationships we build, and the steps we took to make them manifest in the world, fill me up with hope. Hope that we may just be ready to show the world the way of living that is church.
The participants of New Fire are genuine seekers, diligent sojourners in their work toward unity, and courageous believers in the radical power of relationships. As young adults we gathered to discuss the ways in which we could impact the ecumenical movement; yet sometime throughout our many meetings, worship experiences, and challenging discussions I realized that we already were the ecumenical movement. Our different organizations, communions, local churches, and grass roots events were already living into the reality of our unity. This event was simply the crucible forming us into a deeply woven web of relationships.
These types of experiences are always humbling and energizing. During our evening of testimonies I could not help but feel that we were living out the ministry of Jesus. Throughout his ministry he revealed that the power of vulnerability, the courage to step beyond your vision and self to genuinely listen to one another is what this event, movement, and Christian faith is all about.
Through the help of this newly realized community I can feel the power of the Holy Spirit moving and working in our world. As our worships focused primarily upon Moses' encounter with God in the burning bush, I am reminded of another encounter Moses had with God. Standing in the mountains of the wilderness, Moses asked to see God's face. In what I can only describe as the wisdom and mystery of the divine, Moses only catches a glimpse of God around the mountain path. I do not know what the results of this weekend will look like; but I am hopeful and committed to journey and question as Moses did, around another corner, always seeking those burning bushes and divine encounters with God, even if they are brief. These four days were a brief span of my life, but they will continually remind me of our greater community's connection to one another.
I came to New Fire as a precursor for my involvement as a steward in the NCC/CWS General Assembly that followed the event. This was a great time to not only get to know the other stewards that I would be serving with, but also to get to know other young adults involved in the ecumenical movement. It was an amazing 3 days, filled with discussion on who we were as a demographic and what we wanted to do.
The part that was the most meaningful to me was the willingness of the group to ask the hard questions and delve into the difficult issues of our faith. During our Sunday morning Bible study, our group diverged slightly from the lesson as we began to discuss right and wrong, and whether the world sanitizes God. This half an hour spent delving into difficult issues that many Christians like to skirt over was fulfilling on many levels.
I will take my encouragement back with me after the meeting is through. I am glad to know that we as a group will continue to discuss the difficult issues, and try to work through them in a way that we can all come to an agreement on, despite our differing views on some issues.
Katrice Nolan
I brought with me very little ecumenical work with me to this meeting, however, my communion has always believed in working with other Christians in order to reach those that have not been reached. There were several expectations I had out of this meeting: 1.) I wanted to gain the understanding of making sure I understood what ecumenical work is from all angles. 2.) My expectations were also to meet other young adults like me who have the same passion for the cause of Jesus Christ. 3.) I also expected to take with me the passion from myself and other that were gathered at “New Fire” to continue to re-fuel and keep the flame of our Christian work.
My spiritual experience was like no other I can describe. The moments that we had for worship were absolutely wonderful. I constantly felt God and the Holy Spirit in all of our worship sessions. I also was thankful that we set time aside to worship and everyone was respectful of worship time. I was in constant prayer even while we were engaged in tension filled conversation all the way to our “on top of the world moments” which was great for me and my spiritual experience.
From this meeting, I took that a lot of young adults already feel the same way I do about the work of God. I felt encouraged by the fact that so many of us are already tapped into what God says to do; now it’s time for us to go.
I will take back the activities of worship, because we connected with God in a way that I had never experienced before. I have always believed, the more one worships, the more on hears God. We worship and God gave us so many answers. I will take that back with me to Atlanta, Georgia so that my congregation can continue to do God’s work.
The theme of fear has really spoken to me these past few days in Denver at New Fire. Saturday night we talked about how fear can cause many of the divisions the ecumenical movement faces. We may fear that bringing up a specific issue will only divide us. Perhaps we fear that sharing too much may hurt someone else or ignite someone to hurt us. I think these fears are not unfounded. How do we move past these fears in order to live and love each other as Christians?
One idea was to create safe space where individuals can safely open up to one another. A fellow participant brought up the question - can we really have safe space? We may be able to develop a place where each one of us can trust that the group will not verbally or physically attack one another; indeed I have seen this here at New Fire and in other ecumenical gatherings. However, I think overcoming fear and creating a safe space also takes personal effort from each individual to trust in his or her own relationship with God, the church, and Jesus Christ.
When Moses encounters the burning bush he is afraid. We noted in my Bible study on Sunday morning that Moses does not stop being afraid before he goes forth from the mountain of the burning bush and brings the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses listens to God and goes. I hope that we, young adults in the ecumenical movement, even with our fear, can listen to God and GO.
-Kelly Forbush