A deep spirit of community and connection filled the Superdome as thousands of youth gathered for the third evening of the LCMS Youth Gathering on July 22.
The message was clear: endurance doesn’t come from going solo—it comes from being part of something greater.
Through the joy of a performance by Rend Collective, the honesty of CUW alumnus and poet Tanner Olson’s spoken word, and the grace-filled message of Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, attendees heard new perspectives about the beauty of enduring together, in Christ.
Spoken Word from a Familiar Voice
Olson took the stage with a poem that reflected his own challenges as a teenager, and that vulnerability is often the first step to endurance.
“I was half my age, 17 years old, insecure and nervous, just like right now … I went left and right, up and down, searching all around, forgetting that in Christ I’ve been found.”
His poem wove humor, honesty, and truth into a message for any young person wondering where they belong.
“There is nothing, nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ. Let this good news bring you joy, and may that joy slow you down to see the beauty that surrounds you and me.” – Tanner Olson
“Gumbo”
Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, speaker for The Lutheran Hour radio program, addressed the crowd, beginning with a visual appropriate to the location: gumbo.
“We do not endure by ourselves; we endure as a people,” he said. And gumbo is a good image for this because gumbo is a diverse unity where unique individual ingredients contribute to the overall flavor. And sometimes it’s a little spicy.”
Pastor Zeigler shared a moving story of a woman named Tammy from Broadmoor Community Church in New Orleans. She had long been a matriarch of the old Broadmoor congregation. She called it a “family church.” But as the community changed and became more diverse, Tammy struggled with what it meant to belong.
One day, she looked around and realized she was one of the few white people left in the congregation. She wasn’t sure if it still felt like family.
Then she met two teenage boys that started coming to church with their grandmother after a tragic loss. Years earlier, their mother, caught in addiction and darkness, had set fire to their home and died in the blaze. The boys went to live with their grandmother, who got to know Broadmoor’s Pastor Gregory Manning through the church’s food bank. Pastor Manning welcomed them into the congregation, even making them junior deacons.
Tammy’s heart opened. She sat with them in church, gave them rides to school, and became like an honorary mother to them. The turning point for Tammy and perhaps the whole congregation came on her birthday. She wasn’t one for fusses or surprises. But that day, she walked into the church and saw tables being set up and church members preparing food. She grew agitated—no one had told her what was going on.
“It’s for you, Miss Tammy. Happy Birthday,” they told her.
Unfortunately, Tammy passed away in 2018, but a photo of her hangs in the back of Broadmoor Community Church, honoring her legacy as a matriarch of a new kind of family—one defined not by sameness, but by grace, faith, and transformation.
“God is our chef and Jesus is our base,” Zeigler said. “Now we need to think about the guests because we do not endure for ourselves. We endure for others. We are blessed to be a blessing for others. We are a cloud of witnesses to witness others. We are a gift for the guests.”
Rend Collective
The night concluded with a performance by Rend Collective, an Irish Christian folk rock worship band from Bangor, Northern Ireland. Their music—joyful and folk-driven—filled the dome with declarations of hope and faith.
Student ambassadors Emma Kaiser, Nina Seeger, and Micah Yurk had the opportunity to introduce Rend Collective. For Kaiser, the experience was profoundly meaningful—both personally and spiritually.
“Rend Collective has been part of my faith journey for as long as I can remember. Their songs filled my high school choir room. My mom plays their music in her classroom. Their lyrics have followed me through a lot of seasons—joyful ones, hard ones, everything in between. So to be given the opportunity to introduce them on that stage, in front of a crowd that massive, still doesn’t feel real.”
Once the music began, the Superdome erupted in collective praise.
“When the music started and the crowd lifted their voices in worship, I felt this overwhelming sense of God’s presence. Not in a flashy or showy way—but in a quiet, deep way. Like He was weaving Himself into every lyric, every raised hand, every heart in that room. It wasn’t just a performance—it was a moment of surrender, of joy, of praise.”
Their music resonated with the evening’s theme—Endure—in a way that transcended sound and lyrics.
“Rend Collective’s music connected so deeply to the theme of Endure because it reminded us that even when we walk through valleys—even when life is heavy, uncertain, or painful—our Savior is right there beside us. Their songs aren’t just upbeat; they carry truth. Truth that says, yes, life is hard… but God is still good.”
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