The Lutheran Student Movement-USA National Gathering was held in The Woodlands from December 29 through January 2. Christ the King members Allison Johnson and Tim Redl were in attendance and represented the University of Houston and Rice University, respectively. The theme of this year’s gathering as “Houston, we have a problem: endeavoring to more fully discover our mission as young adults of faith and challenging the church from within.”
Throughout the 5 days, Allison and Tim led a small group in Bible study and discussion. They also attended three workshops: 1) “Bold Call: Discovering Your Place in the World”, 2) “Students on MY Campus Can MAKE A DIFFERENCE, even Change the World!?”, and 3) “A Job By Any Other Name, Would Still Stink!” We were also treated to some wonderful inspirational Christian music by the band Dakota Road. Furthermore, we discovered that our Synod Bishop, Paul Blom is an avid Green Bay Packer fan. As Allison yells, “GO PACKERS!”
An Offering of $1630.17 was collected to support our Houston campus ministry expansion efforts. This amount was matched by Thrivent, so that another $1630.17 will go to support LSM-USA. Another offering of $500 was collected and donated to the Houston Shriner’s Hospital.
Each year, LSM-USA participates in a National Service Project. This year, the project involved enhancing children’s literacy. Each participant was encouraged to bring new or used children’s books to the gathering to be donated to Memorial Hermann Children’s Hospital. Allison and Tim helped hand-deliver over 700 books to the hospital.
On the last night of the gathering, at the banquet and awards dinner, Tim was awarded an LSM-USA Lifetime Achievement and Membership Award for his years of service to LSM-USA.