The Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend has become a gathering time at the Blowing Rock Conference Center for the youth of the Southeast and Southern Conferences of the UCC for a number of years.  Each year more and more youth and young adults bring to the annual Winter Youth Retreat (WYR) their thoughts and enthusiasm for such engaging topics as “Peace Makers: Overcoming Violence” and “Nurturing Peace Within.”  This year’s retreat welcomed 185 dynamic perspectives on the theme of “Justice Makers: A Call to Action.”  With Micah 6:6-8 as our guide, we explored more fully the difference between charity and justice and the need for both in our call as Christians.  We also discovered the long-standing tradition of justice initiatives in the UCC and learned of ways in which we can participate in these on-going efforts.

Throughout the keynote sessions, Rev. Kelly Burd (Minister for Leadership Development with the Justice and Witness Ministries at the National Setting of the UCC in Cleveland, OH) and Eric Ogi (a certified J-LED /Justice Leaders Engaging and Developing trainer) shared their passion and personal experiences  being justice makers. They offered first-hand stories of the need for more than just outreach and service opportunities from our congregations and fellow Christians. Youth leaders helped to facilitate greater conversations and deeper dialogue during small group times, and it is here that we all discovered that many of our young people are well aware of injustices in their own lives and offered unique perspectives on why more acts of justice are needed in addition to the acts of charity.

We did take some time from these keynote sessions and small group discussions to participate in an act of service to others. Churches were asked to bring with them donated items for 200 hygiene kits and 200 school kits to support the work of Church World Service, which as we learned, was a critical source of care across the South during last year’s spring storms. We are extremely grateful to all of the congregations that helped prepare and provide these kits. This was an enormous task. It could not have been accomplished without the many donations and the people that packaged and shipped the 400 kits.

Two of the highlights of this year’s retreat came from music and drama. We welcomed to the WYR Daniel Heath and his worship team from Covenant Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, NC. This seven-member ensemble led us in songs of praise and worship before each keynote and helped to foster a moving concluding worship service Sunday night. Adding to the excitement of these sessions and especially the closing worship was the humorous tale of our resident clown, Rob Hadaway, who beautifully demonstrated with a handmade scale of justice the necessity of a faith community to work together to tip the balance of injustice.

We continue to be amazed each year by the depth with which our youth engage these topics, and we are extremely pleased to know that the churches in these two conferences support youth ministry and youth leadership. Our hope is that the knowledge gained by the leaders who bring the kids each year and who help to guide our small groups will carry over to the congregations and will help strengthen the various youth ministries in our denomination, for they are an integral piece of our justice making efforts. The weekend would not have been complete without you!

A Reflection from Our SEC Youth
First Congregational Traveled to Blowing Rock

The youth from First Congregational Church in Atlanta traveled to Blowing Rock for the annual winter retreat. "It was a great experience for me to explore my faith," said Aaron Cheese, a 10th grader who was excited to participate this year. "By sharing stories of injustices, the youth were given a chance to see that injustice anywhere, whether it is happening to their neighbors or to someone half way around the world, affects us all," said Mo Morgan, an adult volunteer. “By sharing stories of injustices they have witnessed during small group discussions, the youth were given a chance to see that injustice anywhere, whether it is happening to their neighbors or to someone half way around the world, affects us all. They were introduced to some ways of improving our community not just through acts of charity but [with addressing systemic change] over the long term; which, we learned, are essential for establishing justice.” The youth left the winter retreat with a conviction to do service and justice in the Atlanta community.  They are eager to invest in Inspireship, a service leadership plan that was devised by some of the high school youth prior to attending the retreat.