The Young Adult Fesitval

The first thing to understand about the Young Adult Festival (YAF) is that one of its primary reasons for existing is and was to provide a way for young adults (people 18-30ish) to be present at General Convention (GC). It also included a wide variety of activities for those who got tired of the endless talking of GC. I spent the majority of my time over at GC, but with around 160 people present for the YAF, including aobut a dozen from ohter provinces of the Communion, there was plenty for the organizers to do.

I first arrived on Monday at around 1:30 pm. I had some trouble finding my hotel so I put my car into public parking while I hiked around to find my hotel, the Doubletree. Once I found my hotel I hiked back towords my car, stopped for lunch, and moved my car over to the hotel parking garage. By the time I had done all this, it was time registration time for the YAF and check into my room. After that I wandered over to the Convention Center to get the lay of the land and to check out the exhibit hall. There were all sorts of people, from art sellers to vestment makers and sellers to groups active in church politics to mission oriented organizations and more, all setting up their booths in the exhibit hall. I'll post on those from whom I picked up brochures in a later post. After visiting the exhibit hall I went back over to the hotel for the orientation reception. After nabbing a bite to eat there I headed over to the Hyatt, one of the other hotels being used for the convention, for a concert put on by a group called Reconciliation, I'll give you three guesses what they're working for in the church. The performer was Fran McKendree. From there I wandered over to a bar called the Frog Bear & Wild Boar for a gathering of young adults. Then I went back to my hotel to sleep.

The next day I got up early with the thought of going to a committee hearing, but by the time I had eaten breakfast and passed out the YAF newsletter the hearings were well underway. Since I didn't feel like sneaking in late I walked past the Eucharist hall, got signed up to do the chalice at that Eucharist, and helped Fr. Gregory of the Order of Julian of Norwich haul boxes in to the Conference of Anglican Religious Orders in the Americas booth. Then it was time to go over to prepare for the Eucharist. Each Eucharist was from one of the approved books (BCP, EOW). I have the bullitens from each service if anyone is interested in seeing them, but the most notable aspect of each service was generally the style of music that accompanied the words of the liturgy. it is also worth noting that at each service at least one reading was in a language other than English, although the Gospel was generally read in English. On Tuesday the music sounded like it was inspired by Sacred Harp style music. A number of the young adults didn't really appreciate the style, but I found it to be generally rather pretty. After Eucharist I listened to the House of Bishops (HoB) start up. After they had gotten up and running I wandered back down to the exhibit hall with Pat Fennig, a college student initially from the Diocese of Indianapolis until we headed out for lunch. After lunch I hung out in the exhibit hall picking up more info from various booths until I realized that it was getting towards 4 pm when the houses would return to legislative sessions. I spent this afternoon session in the House of Deputies (HoD). The most interesting event of this session was the Rt. Rev. John Sentamu Archbishop of York coming to speak and deliver a message from the Archbishop of Canterbury. You can read the message from the Canterbury here. When that legislative session concluded I went up to hear what the deputation from Indy thought about how the day went. One of the primary things they mentioned there was the blog hosted by the diocese. The U2 Eucharist followed the deputation. Bishop Curry of North Carolina preached and the music was all from Bono/U2. It was a long service and rather fun. There were probably about 800 people present for that. It was organized by Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation (EGR) in support of the One Campaign.

The YAF sessions I didn't atted on Tuesday were by a lovely person named Lauren Winner. I heard that she tended to lecture more than people liked in the sessions covering journaling (aka "spiritual writing" according to the YAF schedule) and "Minding the Gap" between young adults and the rest of the Church. In the afternoon there were opportunities to learn more about Anglican Prayer Beads and Lectio Divina. I didn't hear anything about the workshops, but I believe they were very much enjoyed by those who chose to participate in them.

On Wednesday I primarily stuck with YAF activities for the morning. The first session was primarily about discernment (not the process) and the speakers were Sr. Sarah from the Society of Saint Margaret and Br. Eric a first order Fransiscan. After lunch the two of them helped us explore what a rule of life is and how one could start to go about developing one. After these sessions I had the opportunity to do some Yoga or walk something called a "prayer path" which I suspect was something like a labyrinth. Neither particularly appealled to me so I went back over to the Convention, and sat in the House of Bishops for a while. One of the more interesting resolutions they debated dealt with the Millenium Development Goals (MDG's, see the EGR link above for more info on them). At that time they heard from one of the visiting international young adults, who spoke very passionately and well about the MDG's. You can find the YAF newsletter in which it was printed here; it's at the top of the second page. When the HoB moved on to hearing from the head of Forward Movement I wandered down to the exhibit hall and hung out in the CAROA booth making anglican rosaries, praying, and helping distribute their DVD's on the religious life. When it got to be 6 pm I wandered up to the deputations meeting where the Deputies complained about the voting fiasco that had wasted their whole afternoon. We also heard a speech about the Young Adult Service Corp (YASC) from a married couple who are going to be missionaries in the coming year. After the deputation meeting I had the choice of going to a Theology on Tap discussion titled "Everyone has a story, what's your's?", going to a committee hearing on the response to the Windsor Report, or listening to the Program, Budget, & Finance committee (PB&F). I chose to go to the Windsor Report hearing. It was generally respectful, but the speakers where clearly in opposition and didn't seem to have much interest in finding a compromise position.

I missed the Eucharist on Wednesday, but I heard that it was done half in Spanish and that the sermon was entirely in Spanish.

This post is getting long enough so I'll break here and finish talking about the rest of the week later.

Jon