Dear Saints of the NWIM Synod,
It is already time for you and your congregation to start planning for next summer’s ELCA Youth Gathering in Minneapolis, whether you have one or more teens interested in attending. There are several things that will be different about this Gathering. From the Gathering’s website: We’ve reimagined the Gathering to meet the needs of today’s young people. Groups will no longer rotate through traditional program days (Synod Day, Interactive Learning Day, Accompaniment Day), but those experiences will continue in fresh, creative ways. You can expect interactive spaces, time with your synod, opportunities to serve (if you’d like) and moments that meet young people where they are. Further, If service is important to your congregation, we encourage you to sign up for SERVE, our all-day service and learning component on Monday.
The draft schedule says there are optional synod events on Friday, and this is what our Regional Gathering Rep, Pastor Bergen Eickhoff wrote to me, “I am planning to hold a Region One Gathering on that Friday morning. But it will be completely optional. The gathering I'm planning will just be for the morning…so a group can attend the gathering in the morning and still make an afternoon flight.” (Bergen has a FB Group for Region 1).
All ELCA congregations are invited to participate. Ecumenical partners are also encouraged to attend. Contact the Gathering office (gathering@elca.org) for more information.
Youth participants must be in eighth to 12th grade at time of registration (fall 2026).
Adult leaders accompanying youth to the Gathering must be at least 21 years old at the time of the Gathering.
Subscribe to the Gathering News (g news) now, if you have not already done so.
There will be three price brackets for hotels this year.
Gathering dates are June 28-July 2 (Monday-Friday).
Pre-events include MYLE and The tABLE
The Young Adult Gathering will run simultaneously to The Gathering
Getting Ready Materials launch this August
Webinars are scheduled for Aug. 17, Sept. 24, Oct. 13, Nov. 19
Financial Assistance opens Oct. 16
Priority Registration Opens Oct. 21
If you have just a few youths in your congregation, it is still possible to attend on your own OR consider partnering with a neighboring congregation. If you get stuck finding a partner or feel overwhelmed, please reach out to the synod office and we will try to partner you with a larger church.
Keep reading to learn my WHY for the Youth Gathering
I am a huge fan of the ELCA Youth Gatherings. When I stood for the bishop’s election in our synod in 2023, I quoted Galatians 5:13-14 as a central verse for my life and ministry. Guess where I first really heard that verse—the 1991 Gathering in Dallas when the theme was “Called to Freedom.” I attended again in Atlanta. I served as a volunteer in New Orleans, St. Louis, Atlanta (all Hotel Life—giving my first sermon in New Orleans in ’97 in a hotel ballroom) and San Antonio, TX (serving on the Fiesta Planning Team with Margie Fiedler, Mark Nelson, Janice Dick, Rod and Sue Minarik, and Maggie Wells). I took youth from Soldier, IA to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. I took youth from Nampa, Idaho to New Orleans, Detroit, and Houston. Why do I keep going back? High school youth encounter Jesus Christ, as I did, in a powerful way that has connections to life back home in the congregation and is also unique! It is amazing to be in a room with so many other ELCA Lutherans (the Youth Gatherings has been the largest gathering of ELCA adults as well as youth). I love hearing the speakers and preachers the Gathering invites. I loved introducing youth to various cities across our amazing country. I love that the Gathering creates spaces for exploring faith in new ways, building relationships with others from across the vast ELCA, play, learning, and serving. The Gathering is (along with parents passing on the faith, Sunday School, worship, campus ministry, church colleges, and outdoor ministries) one important part of an incredible ecosystem of youth and young adult faith formation in the ELCA.
My parents were part of planning and implementing many Youth Gatherings before I was born and through my first year as a volunteer in 1997. From at least 1985-1997 they coordinated the interaction center, but my dad, a life-long lay person, had other roles before then. He’s pictured below in Madison Square Garden in NYC in 1970 during the American Lutheran Church’s Gathering. With him are Pastors Joe Bash and Rusty Halaas. You can read about that Youth Gathering in this old New York Times article. Thanks to St. Mark’s member Beth Halaas, my host for a year during my stays in Spokane, for sharing the photo with.
Bishop Manlove