In late March, something strange happened in Salt Lake City, Utah: young Episcopal adults from all over Province VIII converged on the city.  It was a time for evangelism.  Before you begin to imagine some type of reverse mission - with bike-riding liturgically minded Episcopal students preaching the benefits of the latest Lambeth pronouncements with Book of Common Prayer in hand - I should warn you that our good news was for our fellow Episcopal young adults: you are not alone and you are a part of this world.  We spent our weekend learning more about the roles we can play in our churches, our faith system and in our world.

The first speaker awakened us to our increased social responsibility for our fragile environment.  Our generation is inheriting a world on the precipice of natural disaster and thoughtfulness is necessary for the road ahead.  From the second speaker, we learned about a fantastic interfaith organization called “Utah Power and Light” that is encouraging churches to begin following responsible “green” policies in their building plans and energy usage.  Our final keynote address was from some special guests from Province VII, who talked about their campus ministry in Honduras.  They told of the tragedy of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Honduras. Currently, the country has around 18,000 people suffering from this tragic disease with only enough funding to treat 5,000 people.  The speakers were very frank about the problems they face teaching sex education in their cities.  Unfortunately, most of their resistance has come from other churches.

Students were able to attend many different workshops encompassing a variety of areas of religious and world awareness.  There were workshops on understanding U.N. Millennium Development Goals and religious fundamentalism, as well as our location-specific event: understanding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

But for me, the greatest benefit came from sharing time with others.  Six of us traveled from Washington State University (WSU) to Salt Lake.  We all got the benefit of learning and seeing other peoples’ walks of faith and how they were tackling the difficult issues of trying to understand our faith in the context of being members of the world.

My greatest blessing came from hearing how another student’s life had led her to where she is right now.  The Episcopal Church is not unique in the fact that it encompasses people from many backgrounds, but I have found that it is a church that does not erase our history once we come in the doors.  These experiences are what make us who we are and can help encourage us to grow towards the perfection we are drawn to in Christ.  These experiences are the evangelism that has encouraged me and shown me, as always, that the Episcopal Church does indeed allow many to come to Christ’s table and say “Though we are many, we are one.”