2009 USCMA MISSION CONFERENCE

Behold I Create a New Heaven and a New Earth: Seeing Mission with New Eyes

Every year, the United States Catholic Mission Association (USCMA) organizes a Mission Conference that helps deepen, enrich, and challenge our mission perspectives. It has been the venue for networking of those involved in mission both domestic and abroad. As an annual Mission Conference, it has helped usher in new initiatives in the promotion of mission and global solidarity.

This year, USCMA is proud to announce its 2009 Mission Conference:

BEHOLD I CREATE A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH

Seeing Mission with New Eyes

Hilton New Orleans Airport

New Orleans, LA

October 23-25, 2009

Four hundred years ago, Galileo’s breakthrough use of the telescope provided the world with a new vision - one that extends to the stars and planets of our galaxy. Today, as we are confronted with the changing realities of mission, we are called to see with new eyes what God is unfolding before us. And together, gather from our vision, a mission that moves us towards a new heaven and a new earth.

“Behold I Create a New Heaven and a New Earth: Seeing Mission with New Eyes” invites us

·        to see with a sense of urgency God’s invitation to participate in God’s mission;

·        to extend our vision beyond the now and gather wisdom and strength from our faith tradition with its hope for a future where God’s reign becomes fully alive;

·        to respond creatively to a new heaven and a new earth that God is revealing before our very eyes.  

The Mission Conference is set in New Orleans whose rich history illustrates an ability to integrate cultural diversity, create a new musical form (jazz), and rise above the recent misery and chaos from Katrina to build a new city of God. It is to this area where the eyes of many young people have been opened to the call to be of service to God’s people in need.     .    

The 2009 Mission Conference will feature keynote speaker, Rev. Anthony Gittins, CSSP, Professor of Mission and Culture at the Catholic Theological Union. Dr. Gittins is a renowned scholar, presenter, author, and expert on issues pertaining to mission and culture.  Together with 13 other speakers, this Mission Conference is promising to be a very timely and exciting one!

The 2009 Mission Conference will also feature a New Orleans Immersion Experience where participants will be transported to interesting locations in New Orleans. Using the lens of the New Orleans’ rebuilding experience, we explore mission creativity, partnership, and effectiveness arising out of chaos and disorder. (c/o Sr. Judy Gomila)

There will also be a Mission Conversation Panel that will engage the local and international experience of mission. In this Mission Conversation, the panel will look into how the experience of pervasive poverty and desperation has led to a hope-filled response to mission.

There will also be five (5) Dialogue Sessions on focused topics that will engage not only the expertise of the speakers but will honor the experiences and expertise of the participants themselves. The Dialogue Sessions are:

1. Lay Leadership in Mission: Seeing Mission with New Eyes

How does an increased presence of laity in mission bring a new perspective and a new response to the church’s missionary efforts? What do we see as challenges and possibilities for formation, economic sustainability, and a lifelong response to mission?

2. Mission in the New Economic Reality: Resourcing the New Perspectives in Mission

How do we remain faithful to our mission when economics force us to narrow our priorities? What resources are revealed by the pressure of necessity?

3. “Guess Who’s Coming to Church?”: Immigration with New Eyes

What aspects of the immigrant experience re-form our perspectives of Church and mission? How are immigrants missionaries in our time?

4. Religious Charism: Leading Us Creatively to Mission Today

How does a founding sense of urgency draw religious to a new sense of partnership and a sharpening of our missionary responses? What cries out for a new heaven and a new earth that religious can uniquely respond to?

5. Out of the Womb of Katrina: Forming Future Missioners Through Short-term Immersion Experience

What has Katrina taught us about the youth sense of mission? How does being faced with pressing needs like Katrina become formative experience to tomorrow’s missioners? How are short-term immersions transforming how they see themselves, the Church, and mission? 

 A Saturday liturgy will be celebrated by the Most Reverend Alfred Clifton Hughes, Archbishop of New Orleans at the St. Louis Cathedral located at the Spanish Plaza de Armas, now Jackson Square, in the French Quarter. This will be followed by a night out at the French Quarter to give participants time to enjoy another side of New Orleans.

 The Registration fee which includes trip to the immersion sites, meeting materials, refreshments, and meals (except for the night out) is $299 for USCMA members ($315 after September 23) and $315 for non USCMA members ($335 after September 23).

For more information, please contact USCMA at 202-832-3112 or e mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . You may also visit us at www.uscatholicmission.org .