In the summer of 2009 36000 young people came to New Orleans for the ELCA Youth Gathering. The decision to return to the Big Easy in 2012 was easy. The relationships that were built through service and learning in 2009 call us back to stand with the people of New Orleans. The thousands of orange-shirted ELCA teenagers who earned a respected place in the post-Katrina recovery story will return not to only reprise their service effort but to listen to the testimonies of how the Holy Spirit has worked in the lives of these particular Christians to remind them that they are bound together with the household of God even through tragedy.

The Gathering program is built around three core practices in which participants will be immersed before they come to New Orleans while they are together in New Orleans and hopefully in the community of their congregations when they return home. The core practices--Discipleship Peacemaking and Justice--serve to practically clarify the Greatest Commandment: to love the Lord our God and our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:34-40).

The 2012 ELCA Youth Gathering presents us some unique opportunities as for the first time we return to the same city in consecutive years. This particular video captured much of the energy and excitement of the service ministry that was a part of the 2009 ELCA Youth Gathering - Jesus Justice Jazz. We also have a unique opportunity in the fact that for the first time two classes of high schoolers who attended in 2009 are eligible to return in 2012. Those who were entering their first or second years of high school in the Fall of 2009 could be returning.

As we look forward to citizens with the saints we want to build on the relationships that were created with our many partners in New Orleans and the wisdom provided by these returning participants. The ELCA Youth Gathering is committed to providing future video invitations that fully represent our ethnic and cultural diversity.