Asanda Gidyana and Neliswa Mafatse, members of the South African United Methodist Youth Fellowship, sing during the Global Young People's Convocation held during the New Year’s holiday in 2006-07. UMNS file photos by Kathy L. Gilbert

By Tim Ghianni*
September 2, 2009 | NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)

The remnants of the Berlin Wall will serve as a powerful symbol of unity and hope for some 500 youth and young adults expected at the Global Young People’s Convocation and Legislative Assembly next July 21-26.

Where better than Berlin, a city that struggled with both its Nazi past and being divided among the superpowers, to hold a gathering with the theme of “One Church, One Lord, One World,” church leaders said.

“We chose Berlin intentionally,” said Elizabeth-Ann Rowlison, coordinator of the event for Young People’s Ministries, a division of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship. “It speaks to the kind of event we want to have because of Berlin’s history and its present, as a divided city that has united over the last 20 years and has had to overcome a lot of its history.”

The gathering, the second of its kind, serves as a place to bring young people throughout the church together “to celebrate who they are as Christian leaders and to learn from each other,” said Mike Ratliff, staff executive with the Division on Ministries with Young People.

The legislative assembly portion “is the official place where young people can propose legislation and debate it and send it to the General Conference to consider,” he said. General Conference, the top lawmaking body of The United Methodist Church, will meet in 2012 in Tampa, Fla.

Any youth or young adult can propose resolutions or legislation, and then delegates will vote on it. The deadline to propose legislation is Dec. 31.

The first such convocation, held during the New Year’s holiday in 2006-07, took advantage of the site of Johannesburg, South Africa, with its history of overcoming apartheid and growing stronger, according to Rowlison.

Rowlison and other church leaders say Berlin – a place where different ideologies came together “to make a really modern progressive city” – also can be used as a learning model.

“We are hoping to use the site in a lot of different ways: Visit the Berlin Wall, there’s a concentration camp outside the city that we can take the youth to, there’s a Holocaust Memorial and a huge Jewish Museum that’s really powerful,” Rowlison said.

“It’s about developing leadership among young people, raising the concerns and the passions of young people and giving them a voice in the church,” she said of the event.

Further information is available at www.globalyoungpeople.org.

*Ghianni, based in Nashville, Tenn., is a freelance writer for the Board of Discipleship.

News media contact: David Briggs, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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Resources

Global Young People

Division on Ministries with Young People

United Methodist Board of Discipleship

United Methodist Church in Germany