July 15-21, 2024
New Orleans
Sign-up HERE
Registration Deadline: Oct. 10, 2023
We’re jazzed to be heading to New Orleans for the 2024 ELCA Youth Gathering! The Big Easy is filled with rich history, friendly locals, amazing food & great music!
Every 3 years, thousands of high school youth and their adult leaders from across the ELCA gather for a week of faith formation and fellowship known as the ELCA Youth Gathering. Through inspiring speakers, conversations with partners, Bible study and being immersed in the host city, young people will be inspired, challenged and called to live out their faith in their daily lives. Additionally, young people will have opportunities to explore their vocation and discern where they are being called into this world.
Due to the cancellation of the 2021/22 ELCA Youth Gathering, many young people were not able to participate in these life-changing faith formation events. In partnership with ELCA Young Adult Ministries, we are thrilled to offer the first-ever ELCA Young Adult Gathering to individuals who will be 18-35 at the time of the Gathering. All young-adult participants will be divided into cohorts based on their age and will be housed in their own hotel property, undergo background checks and have separate programming (aside from the Mass Gathering).
We anticipate the ELCA Youth & Young Adult Gathering will cost around $1500. Families will invest 1/3 of that ($500), which includes a nonrefundable, per-person deposit of $150 due at registration in Oct. 2023. Please save the date and stay tuned for more information!
Psalm 139: 14
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
We are created to be brave, to show up with an open mind and heart, willing to be challenged.
We are created to be authentic, to bring our whole selves & know that we are loved by our Creator.
We are created to be free, to be transformed by the gospel.
We are created to be disruptive, to work for justice for all our siblings.
We are created to be disciples, to be sent out into the world to love our neighbor just as we are loved by God.
Created to Be
We have been created to be ourselves. Created by the Holy One. Since the last time the ELCA came together for an ELCA Youth Gathering, our young people have experienced several major life events. Still today, we are experiencing an ongoing public health crisis mixed with an economic and political crisis. However, we can rest assured that we are created to be in relationship with one another.
Our host city, New Orleans, has always been its true, authentic self. Our theme, “Created to Be,” highlights the arts, music and soul of this beautiful, vibrant and resilient city. New Orleans was built to host and be a city where all God’s children come together.
We plan to dive deeper into justice, mental health and anti-racism conversations throughout the Gathering. These are hard conversations, but our church desperately needs to have them. We also hope to foster relationships and be a sanctuary for one another. We are saint and sinner simultaneously, and we need forgiveness when we aren’t or can’t be brave, authentic, free, disruptive disciples.
