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| New City Parish: Los Angeles, CA New City Parish is an urban coalition of nine congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) located in Los Angeles, Inglewood, and Compton California. NCP’s mission statement is “To manifest the presence of Jesus Christ within the New City Parish boundaries through cooperative ministries, which will enhance spiritual growth, multi-cultural understanding, education, and social-economic well-being." Incarnation’s partnership with New City Parish has been growing since 2004, when Incarnation high school youth participated in a mission trip to South Central Los Angeles to work on various projects with the youth of some of the congregations that make up New City Parish. Glen Winchell Named to New City Parish Board of Directors The New City Parish Board of Directors has a representative from Incarnation! Glen Winchell will serve on the board, attending 3-4 board meetings each year in Los Angeles, strengthening the connection between Incarnation and this exciting ministry partner. Glen was commissioned as Incarnation's representative at all four worship services on Sunday, February 21. Urban Immersion Weekend for Adults October 20-24, 2010 This trip to New City Parish helps missionaries connect with the people of the various congregations of the area and experience the intersection of faith and life while considering important issues such as immigration, gang life, homelessness and poverty in a multi-ethnic setting. A group of adults from Incarnation participated in the 2009 Urban Immersion Weekend. Read about their experience. Urban Immersion Weekend Information Session This is an opportunity to reconnect with some of the people who will travel from Los Angeles to Incarnation in August of 2010. Travelers to New City Parish experience hands on ministry with our brothers and sisters at ELCA churches in South Central Los Angeles, Inglewood and Compton. One of the highlights of the trip will be the Annual New City Parish Celebration Banquet on October 30. This event brings together people from all nine congregations that make up New City Parish as well as ministry partners from the surrounding area. It's a perfect opportunity for you to experience a shorter version of the high school L.A. trips and connect with some of the people your high schooler has been talking about! For more information about New City Parish Urban Immersion trip, check out the Quick Trip Facts sheet. When: Sunday, May 2; 9:45 a.m. Registration Information: You can sign up for the October 20-24 trip to Los Angeles in the Incarnation Office. Please bring a check for the $200 non-refundable deposit made out to Incarnation with “LA Urban Immersion” in the memo line. The deadline for registration is Tuesday, June 15, 2010. April 2009: Los Angeles Urban Immersion Update “Let me know when the next trip is, I’ll definitely do this again.” “Our host family was wonderful.” “Brian is a great teacher.” These are some of the comments from five adults from Incarnation who participated in our first ever Urban Immersion program at New City Parish in Los Angeles. This short and powerful introduction to some of the issues and concerns that we face as we try to live faithfully in a diverse culture took place from April 29 – August 3.  Each morning we began with a Bible study around some issue related to peace and justice, for example immigration and economic justice. Pastor Brian Eklund led us in study, which generated much discussion. At one of our sessions, one of the home stay hosts participated with us and that was absolutely fantastic. We suggested to Pastor Brian that he invite other folks from New City Parish to participate next year.We learned about a Salvadorian holiday, called “Holy Cross Day.” The cross is decorated with flowers and fresh fruits, signifying the abundance of grace that has resulted from Christ’s death on this instrument of torture. We helped Carlotta and Elba and some of the other ladies decorate a large cross with many items. Carlotta kept muttering to herself and finding yet another piece of flora to decorate the large cross. On Sunday, people at St. Mark’s were asked to bring one of their crosses and share a story about where they had gotten it and the affect it had on their lives. After sharing a story, the crosses were laid on a table and the service ended by having them blessed and we sang, “Lift High the Cross” in Spanish and in English.  On Saturday, the group participated in a clean-up day at Pueblo de Dios (House of God) Lutheran Church. It’s one of the purely Spanish speaking churches in New City Parish. Pastor Samuel is a bundle of energy. We helped by cleaning and painting and were rewarded with fantastic Mexican sandwiches and liquados (cold fruit drinks). We also worshiped at Pueblo on Sunday. They have a fantastic worship band and there is lots of energy in the place. We hope to do more with these folks as our ministry partnership develops.It seems that Lutherans love to eat, no matter where they are located. We feasted on Belizean Stew Beans and Rice, Salvadoran Pupusas and salad, fantastic Guatemalan fish and ceviche, cactus salad, and burritos that were the size of cars! If anyone was planning to lose weight on the trip, that certainly did not happen. It was a fabulous taste of international dishes that were new to most of us, and delicious! All of the participants agreed that the home stays were absolutely the best part of the trip. The community is diverse so Incarnation folks stayed in Mexican, Salvadorian, Belizean, and African American households. The hospitality of our hosts was amazing and as we left on Saturday morning, we wanted to linger over breakfast and more conversation with our hosts. This activity will be expanded to more nights of future trips. We left feeling that we were part of families that we never could have known outside of this partnership.
God is truly present in this ministry partnership of presence that began several years ago with a youth mission trip to L.A. The youth are traveling to L.A. again August 1-9, for their fourth mission trip to NCP. Many at Incarnation remember the visit from the St. Mark’s youth group last summer. We are looking forward to more Urban Immersion Weekends with adults and possibly youth in the future. If you’re interested in learning more about this ministry partnership or would like a schedule for future Urban Immersion trips, please contact Lynda Thompson. Check out Incarnation's other ministry partners: Mkwawa Lutheran Church: Iringa, Tanzania Chontala: Guatemala LifeHaven/Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota: Saint Paul, Minnesota Families Moving Forward For more information on mission partners or mission trip opportunities, please contact Lynda Thompson at lthompson@incarnationmn.org or 651-484-7213. |
