The Northwest District Middle School Gathering

This past weekend was the LCMS Northwest District Middle School Gathering (NW MS Gathering). Unlike Minnesota where there are two districts (Minnesota South and Minnesota North) in one state, the Northwest District is actually four states combined to make one very large district. The NW district is Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska. The gathering of students 6-9 grade to one location is a difficult task especially with such a widespread area to cover (over 2500 miles) the cost of travel alone would be extensive. So we turned to technology to bridge the gap and connect 500+ Middle School students from four different states.

How is this done you might ask? Well each location used skype. There was a camera at each location to capture the image of the students at that place. This was then projected at the other locations. If you look at the below image I will explain a bit more.

The picture below is from the Oregon location (picture courtesy of NW LCMS Gathering Facebook page). You can see on the screen fatherest away is a projection of the Alaska group of students. The middle screen shows the gathering logo, but on this screen would alternately be the Washington group. and on the screen closest to the photographer you can make out facebook

Oregon Middle Schoolers (courtesy of facebook)

You may be wondering why facebook has a screen all its own. Well this is where things get very creative and I feel a lesson can be learnt from this event to other large group gatherings. Most gatherings youth are encouraged or required to give up their cell phones, i-pods etc. What the older generation doesn't realize is that cell phones are almost an extension of the body. While there is something to be said of Sabbath away from the phone, utilizing rather than punishing the technology in an engaging way is more effective than restricting.

Our Alaska group of Middle Schoolers!

During the entire gathering students were encouraged to post questions directly to the live feed of the facebook wall. This was engaging for if questions were posed for the speaker as students could interact with the speaker from various locations. Since it's hard to raise one's hand in the middle of the speaker (who was in Washington) there would be no way to connect but with this feature we were bridging the gap.

One of the session speakers

The group in Oregon

There was another unique technology connection and i'm not sure how it was done but students could text questions and they would appear on the screen. Perhaps it was done by google voice or something but it was neat. There was also a game played with questions like "text a picture of someone being an imitator of Christ" and they could.

The technology did not go without error. As always technology has it's downside. The group in Oregon who presented a skit by simply projecting their voices did not work as with no microphones the other groups in Washington and us in Alaska could not hear anything. Also there was some lag time between video, and echoing when voice was picked up. This created interesting worship the first time as our lagging voices echoed with the song Mighty to Save so we were muted at the Oregon location but it all worked out eventually.


We even were able to play large group games. We played "Ships and Sailors" aka "Captain's coming" with all the sites included and we also had a mini talent show (silly talents like who had the largest thumb etc). I feel that utilizing cell phones in an engaging way is what we need to move towards. Why punish technology when it  can help in ministry?

Receiving instruction for "Captain's Coming"

"Captain's Ball"

Doing the wave from Oregon to Alaska

The large group sessions were great but we also had fun in our small group "Alaska Only" sessions. These included Bible Study with some unique interactive activities such as making a tin foil mold mask of each person, washing each other's feet (with baby wipes), and games of our own.

Bible Study

In the word

capturing every unique feature

Completed masks Tori and Jenna

Washing feet with baby wipes...Annette is ticklish

Claire is ticklish too...

Our service project: Making tie blankets for the women's shelter

On Saturday afternoon the we went sledding up on Hatcher Pass. Since my internship church has the 15 passenger van that was going to be the mode of transportation, however the van would not start. It had gotten down to -15 below actual temperature causing the van to not want to start. The battery was fine as the lights, radio, and fans worked and we even hooked up the battery to a tester and it was fine. The sheer cold caused to to not start. We had to plug it in and postpone sledding for 45 minutes. This was fine but made for a darker sled time as the sun sets early 4:15pm.

-15 overnight will do damage to a vehicle...

Checking the battery voltage, it was fine so the issue lies elsewhere like in the temperature!

 Sledding in Alaska is intense. They don't sled on hills. They sled on MOUNTAINS! On top of the sled mountain it was -13 below and the wind was blowing but that didn't stop the kids from sledding. I too, could not pass up the opportunity to sled, literally, down a mountain.

THIS is our sledding MOUNTAIN up by Hatcher's Pass

The snow was ridiculously deep! Each step up to my knees or higher. The kids and I ended up crawling, putting our saucers out in front of us to spread out our weight. The climb took 20-30 minutes and it was exhausting. Once at the top, one could enjoy a long ride down, but due to the extreme cold and long hike to the top I only went down once.

Looking down the valley

snow depth: RIDICULOUS! 

Making the ascent to sled

Gretchen trying to walk out to the base of the hill

Up and up

Let the fun begin, the hard part is over...

That's me on the saucer coming down, with Toonie (the dog) following me

Our group!

All in all the Middle School Gathering was fantastic, and it was neat to worship with people 2500 miles away. It just goes to show that no distance can keep us from proclaiming and sharing with each other the great love of Christ.