By Roy S. Askins
“I see 20,000,” began the Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), at the closing Divine Service of the 2025 LCMS Youth Gathering, which took place July 19–23 in New Orleans. “I see 20,000 in a fiery furnace — unbound, unburnt. And I see another One in the furnace with them, even the Son of God.”
‘Jesus endures us’
The Gathering began on Saturday night with a Mass Event, one of four large-group gatherings held across the event’s four evenings. Participants trekked through the hot and muggy streets of downtown New Orleans to the Superdome, where they watched skits, played games, sang songs and heard a variety of speakers.
Serving as co-hosts for the Mass Events were the Rev. Brady Finnern, president of the LCMS Minnesota North District; Tanner Olson, Lutheran poet and author; and Shelly Schwalm, assistant professor of Christian Ministry and director of the DCE program at Concordia University, St. Paul, St. Paul, Minn. During Sunday’s Mass Event, Finnern reminded the assembled participants that Jesus “had a purpose … to show each and every one of you love” by His death on the cross.
“What do you fix your eyes on instead of the Lord?” Finnern asked the crowd, warning them of the idolatries of the sinful heart. “This is where the Lord calls you indeed to repent. … We ask for that forgiveness.” A series of dramatic monologues followed, highlighting the struggles young people face, such as a major injury cutting short a high school athlete’s volleyball season and the identity crisis she felt after seemingly losing her purpose.
That same night, Lutheran author and rapper Marcus Gray, known professionally as FLAME, took the stage as the keynote speaker, describing his own experience before he became Lutheran. He urged the crowd not to look within themselves, where they would only find sin, guilt and shame. Instead, “You can look to Jesus, knowing He does not look at you with disgust. … He looks at you with love and kindness,” said Gray.
“In our Baptism,” Gray continued, “He starts our story. … In the Lord’s Supper, He strengthens us … [and] in this mystical union [He] unites us to His Body.” Gray concluded, “Jesus endures us,” drawing participants back to Christ’s death on the cross in the Hebrews text at the heart of the event.
Serving and learning
After a late night, the youth were up early to serve at events around New Orleans. Several church groups assisted at Gloria’s Garden in the historic Tremé neighborhood, one of the oldest neighborhoods in New Orleans. The community garden focuses on providing the neighborhood with a place to learn about and grow healthy food. Youth participants spent the morning creating flowerpots by draping concrete-soaked fabric over buckets and painting bricks for a new patio area that will have a children’s garden and a space to cook.
In addition to the community service opportunities, there were onsite opportunities in the Gathering’s Interactive Center. Participants brought supplies for local pro-life pregnancy centers, donated blood, assembled Braille Bibles, decorated care packages for cancer patients, made sock animals for children in area shelters and hospitals, and wrote notes of encouragement to people serving in the Armed Forces and thank you notes to the local hotel and hospitality workers. The Interactive Center also offered resources, activities, hands-on learning — including a live ultrasound experience where youth crowded around a television screen to see real-time images of a baby in utero — and space for resting and relaxing.
Deaconess Dr. Tiffany Manor, managing director of the LCMS Office of National Mission, said, “Today’s youth are inundated with the message that human life is a matter of choice. LCMS Life Ministry equipped Gathering participants with the truth of God’s creation of every human life. We gave them an opportunity to look at babies growing in their mothers’ wombs through live ultrasounds. We taught pro-life apologetics — how to answer the pro-choice questions that come up in culture and media — through session presentations and games so they may faithfully confess Christ’s love and mercy to their neighbors.”
Also onsite at the Interactive Center were representatives from the schools within the Concordia University System (CUS), both LCMS seminaries and Set Apart to Serve, the Synod’s church work recruitment initiative. “Several wonderful, curious youth were constantly stopping by to learn about becoming a full-time church worker,” said the Rev. Dr. James Baneck, executive director of the LCMS Office of Pastoral Education. “Youth and adults surely left the Gathering with church work vocations in their hearts and minds.”
That sentiment was echoed by the Rev. Dr. Ronald Mudge, provost of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis — “I think there’s a growing openness [to church work] in this generation” — and by Harrison, who, in his sermon at the closing worship, said, “I need a thousand of you to stand up … and go do it. … You will have the most wonderful career. [There are] many challenges, but you will help people who are in the furnace and don’t know who’s in there with them. Bring it to ’em.”
One Gathering tradition is an appearance from Harrison, at the LCMS booth, to take selfies and chat with participants. This year, during a lull, he talked for several minutes with Remington Wells, a youth from St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Columbus, Ind. Wells had been around the booth asking tough theological questions of the pastors there for several days. For Harrison, he had some questions regarding free will.
Wells reported after the conversation that Harrison “answered it really wonderfully. It’s that we have free will in what we wear or what we say. But … spiritually, there is no way we can have free will, because the only … place our free will gets us is hell. … When we do believe, it’s thanks to God.” Wells added that he is hoping to be a pastor some day.
Why be Lutheran?
Between servant events and Mass Events, participants attended Bible studies on the Gathering theme and took in sessions from pastors, missionaries, church workers and educators around the Synod. Members of the Created Male and Female task force led youth and adult sessions on topics relevant to the task force’s work on sexuality and gender. Representatives from other areas of the Synod (e.g., Mission Advancement, Life Ministry, All Nations Ministry, Discipleship Ministry and Youth Ministry) presented on topics ranging from TikTok to loneliness to politics to theology to dating. Easton Lusk from St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Havana, Ill., said his favorite session was “1 > 45,000: Why Be a Lutheran?” with the Rev. Dr. A. Trevor Sutton. And why should one be a Lutheran? According to Easton: “Because we love Jesus, and Jesus loves us.”
A breakout hit among the sessions was the Rev. Jeffrey Hemmer’s presentation “Jesus vs. Andrew Tate: What Is Masculinity?” Hemmer contrasted the example Christ sets for God’s will for men against that embodied by former kickboxer turned social media celebrity and accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate. Young men who stood in line for two hours were still turned away due to lack of seating, resulting in an additional session being added.
Parker Coughlin from Blessed Redeemer Lutheran Church in Brandon, S.D., said, “I thought it would be very interesting to see what … the Christian view of masculinity [is] compared to Andrew Tate. There’s not a lot of people that say a lot of positive things about men. … I think it’s good to see what men need to do and what their place is in the world.” Coughlin grounded the end goal of biblical masculinity in Christian sacrifice: “To be masculine you need to give and focus outwardly on others.”
Mental health was a common point of discussion among participants. Haley Perkins, another member of the group from St. Paul’s, Havana, attended several sessions on the subject. At one of them, “I cried my eyes out. But it was amazing.” Her takeaway was a confidence founded on Christ’s love for her, one that says, “You are worth it.”
Malina Singh of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., also appreciated the Gathering’s attention to the topic of mental health. “A lot of people are gaining more awareness of anxiety and depression. … Talking about it is very helpful,” she said.
Singh also appreciated the relevance of the Gathering theme over the course of a lifetime: “Endurance really looks different for every season of your life.”
A faithful remnant
There was an unplanned chance to see the power of enduring in Christ on Tuesday morning when a small group of protesters picketed outside the main doorway of the convention center while participants were arriving for the day. Some held signs with the message, “God hates you.” Gathering staff reacted quickly and quietly, securing additional security from the Louisiana State Police and forming a human barricade of Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs), Team Flex volunteers and other adult staff and volunteers, shielding the youth. From inside the surge of teens, it was hard to tell that anything was amiss. In fact, it was one of the most boisterous, joyful moments of the event, with youth groups spontaneously singing hymns and the YAVs breaking into cheers such as “Ain’t no party like a Lutheran party, ’cause a Lutheran party don’t stop!”
The response to the protest — small and short-lived as it was — made quite an impression on the attendees. Elisabeth Landskroener, a recent high school graduate from Toledo, Ohio, said the presence of protestors only heightened the Gathering’s “undercurrent of community and fellowship.” Harrison even mentioned it in his sermon at the Gathering’s closing Divine Service: “Those protesters the other day — you know what they said to me? … ‘You have sinners in your church.’ Well, duh!”
Harrison continued: “Don’t look to yourself for anything. [Jesus] says to His apostles, ‘I chose you; you did not choose Me.’ Without Christ, we are dead … in our sins, and He has raised you up, every one of you. You have been grabbed by the Word in Baptism. … It’s powerful. It’s connected to the water, and it makes you alive. … Wherever you go … Christ is with you. Forever.”
“We had never been to the Youth Gathering before — I had never been to the Youth Gathering before,” said the Rev. Ian Heinze, pastor of St. Paul’s, Havana. “But it’s been a beautiful occasion for [the youth of St. Paul’s] to see how many other brothers and sisters confess the faith together with them … the invisible church made a little bit more visible for them.”
The group’s home context made this event especially meaningful: “In the midst of a rural, isolated parish, it’s really a wonderful thing [to know] that we are not alone out there, that the Lord does preserve a faithful remnant.”
Posted Aug. 25, 2025
