Lake Junaluska Conference & Retreat Center

The 2013 Young People in Mission features Shane Claiborne, an internationally known speaker, author, activist, and ordinary radical. This Year’s Young People in Mission Theme:  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. John 1:5. 

• Young People In Mission at Lake Junaluska to host free event and outdoor concert at Nancy Weldon Gym on Monday, July 1 2013
  Lake Junaluska, NC – Young People in Mission will host the City of Opportunity and a free outdoor concert on Monday, July 1 from 3 p.m. – 5 p.m. The City of Opportunity provides a chance for the community to engage with various organizations and local leaders who represent issues of international and domestic disaster relief, community-engaged peace-making, mobility initiatives for the impaired and several other social issues. Through the event, participants will be able to engage with the organizations by participating in small projects.   
  
  The concert will feature indie folk artist, Austin Powell, who made it through two rounds of auditions for The Voice, and plays in Darius King and the Mission. His debut album "Ghosts" climbed up to the Top 20 Singer/Songwriter albums on iTunes in its opening week.
  
  The conference of Young People in Mission runs June 30-July 4. The community is welcome to be a part of the event that engages in conversation and action to identify the needs of our world. The conference fee is $99 for the week or $20 for a day pass. Speakers this year will be: 
• Marcia Owen, Executive Director of Religious Coalition for Nonviolent Durham 
• Nyamah E. Dunbar, Senior Program Manager for Imagine No Malaria with the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR)
• Rev. Regine Jean-Baptiste, pastor of missions and discipleship at White Plains UMC in Cary, NC 
• Shane Claiborne, peacemaker, writer, teacher and visionary leader of the Simple Way faith community in inner-city Philadelphia
• Stephanie Hixon, Executive director for JustPeace Center for Meditation and Conflict Transformation in the United Methodist Church
• DOWNLOAD THE 2013 BROCHURE (PDF)
• Read "A New Vision" by Klay Williams

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. -1 John 1:5-7

No one needs much convincing that our world is full of darkness. Watch the news for ten minutes - crime, disease, poverty, pollution, arguments, and war get thrown in our faces every day. But it's not only "out there" that we find darkness of this world. We have found that it has penetrated our own hearts as well - selfishness, greed, apathy, pride, arrogance, entitlement.

But once there was one who entered this world who had no darkness. He came to battle the darkness, and the darkness couldn't hold him down. It protested, schemed, sneered, mocked, and even killed him, but in the end, he defeated it and rose in blinding light. As disciples of that one, we follow wherever he goes. So we too battle the darkness. We too enter the broken places, just as he did. We too offer up our lives to combat the darkness, just as he did. We too work to spread the light. And even when the darkness appears unbeatable, we struggle patiently together, taking small lights where we can and looking forward to his return. We are the salt and the light. We are the servants of the shining Risen One. We are Christians. We are Punching Holes in the Darkness.

Speakers: 

• Sunday, June 30: Regine Jean- Baptiste UMC Pastor of Discipleship and Missions Cary, NC Native of Haiti
• Monday, July 1: Nyamah Duncan UMCOR Imagine no Malaria
• Tuesday, July 2: Tuesday, July 2 Shane Claiborne
• Wednesday, July 3: Marcia Owen Religious Coalition for Non-violent UMC Pastor who works with shooting victims – prayer vigils and with prisoners reestablishing lives once they have served time.

Worship Leader: Eddie Willis Wesley Pastor at the University of Mississippi

For more information please contact Kris Konsowitz: 901-853-8383 or email at:
kkonsowitz@colliervilleumc.org  

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Young People in Mission is a ministry of the Southeastern Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church.