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Jun 27, 2011 | Joe Bjordal

Episcopal Youth Gather to Connect and Serve

[Episcopal News Service] With hands clapping, bodies swaying and beach balls flying, the singing voices of nearly 1,100 Episcopalians filled Benson Great Hall on the campus of Bethel University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, for the opening worship service of the 2011 Episcopal Youth Event (EYE) on June 23. The triennial event — the second-largest gathering in the Episcopal Church — attracted delegations from nearly all dioceses in the United States as well as the Dominican Republic.

 

Gathered around the theme "Come Together: Intimately Linked in this Harvest Work," 730 high school youth, 310 adults and 50 bishops are spending three days on the Bethel campus, learning together and sharing stories and skills so that, as Bronwyn Clark Skov, officer for youth ministries of the Episcopal Church, said in her welcome, "we might all be enriched and empowered as we go forth from here transformed and eager to fulfill our call as Episcopal Christians in this world."

 

Nearly two years in the planning
Just the day before, members of the EYE mission planning team, made up of 10 high school youth, supported by 13 adult advisors and assisted by staff members from the Episcopal Church Center in New York, were putting the finishing touches on months of planning and preparations.

 

"This is literally the day we have been waiting and planning for, for 18 months," said Skov.

 

She said that a lot of "prayer power" was going into the preparations, and not just from Episcopalians. Just that morning she received an e-mail from the youth ministry leaders of the member denominations of the National Council of Churches of Christ "saying they were praying for EYE."

 

"The team feels this and we're seeing the Holy Spirit pop up all over the place today," said Skov.

 

While a hospitality team made up of youth and adults from congregations of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota and a fleet of buses were stationed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport to welcome guests, members of the mission planning team were deployed around the campus attending to last-minute details that included everything from stuffing registration packets to preparing the visual slides for plenary sessions to learning how to maneuver kites and streamers that would be used in processions at worship services.

 

Continue reading at ENS.