WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana — In 1998, the last time the Rev. Dr. David Gambrell took to the Triennium stage at the Elliott Hall of Music at Purdue University, he was wearing a homemade porcupine mask. “I had just graduated from seminary and I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I decided to join the circus,” said Thursday’s Presbyterian Youth Triennium preacher. He joined a group of former missionaries talking about their experiences as Young Adult Volunteers; the group performed a scene from their traveling show during Triennium. Gambrell was feeling like Thursday’s Triennium theme, prone to wander. “The thing I cannot forget about that day,” said Gambrell, associate for worship in the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s Office of Theology and Worship, “is that feeling of being lost, not knowing who I was or whose I was or what I was called to be.” What makes us prone to wander, Gambrell asked, to turn our back on those we love and to hide from God, the … [Read more...]

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana (PNS) — Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri first traveled to Campamento El Guacio as a 13-year-old girl and kept going back for the next decade. For the girl raised in the capital city of San Juan, Guacio was a chance beyond the beach to connect with nature, the majesty of the mountains and the wonder of the valleys that seemed designed to temper the tropical heat. It was also a chance to learn that the church was much larger than her beloved home congregation at Caparra Terrace Presbyterian Church in San Juan. “I certainly wouldn’t be the person I am today if it weren’t for Guacio,” Cintrón-Olivieri says over lunch at Purdue University’s Earhart Dining Court during the second day of the 2019 Presbyterian Youth Triennium. The person Cintrón-Olivieri is today is co-moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly along with the Rev. Cindy Kohlmann of Boston. And at the Youth Triennium under her tenure as co-moderator, Cintrón-Olivieri got to … [Read more...]

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana (PNS) — The Rev. Denise Anderson noticed something about the infamous news footage of white nationalist marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia in the Summer of 2017: Most of them were young. While a lot of the talk about racism in the United States focuses on events decades and even centuries ago, events such as Charlottesville and the 21-year-old man who shot and killed nine black people in a Charleston, South Carolina church in 2015 reminds us that racism is not dying out. “People you see perpetuating racist ideas and forms of abuse are so often young,” said Anderson, coordinator for Racial and Intercultural Justice for the Presbyterian Mission Agency. “People are being recruited into white nationalist groups at young ages, so if the church does not offer a contradictory voice, we have no hope for the eradication of racism.” Anderson was talking after a hopeful event: Her discussion “What is a Racist? Unlearning what we think we already know” at … [Read more...]

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana — Like Zacchaeus, many youth “live in a world where we are concerned about how others see us,” said Chicago pastor Sandra Van Optstal during a Wednesday sermon that highlighted a lively and earnest afternoon worship service at Presbyterian Youth Triennium. “People saw Zacchaeus as someone who was not gospel material. He had everything he needed, and it’s not likely he will would turn that around.” And just as Zacchaeus internalized who he was and the tax-collecting work he did, today’s high school students often feel under the same pressure, she said. Her own family’s expectations back in the day weren’t nearly what many of today’s students face. Van Opstal said she had three low bars to clear in those days: “get good grades, don’t do drugs and try not to get pregnant. That’s it. If I did it, then people said, ‘Hallelujah!’” “The pressure, the pace and the anxiety you all feel is something I don’t understand at all,” Van Opstal told the 4,000 people in … [Read more...]