Scene from conVERGE 2011
Last year I was invited to speak on student leadership at conVERGE 2011 at Huntington University. I was blown away by the conference’s tech-savvy highly-interactive format and its Christ-centered worship (having Tim Timmons as your worship leader certainly helps). When I came back I blogged that conVERGE broke the mold for regional conferences. Students who attended came away even more impressed.
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Ok, first, I’m hopeful that my colloquialism title translates well to different languages. But, in all of my global travels, one constant remains: We all like our sweets/desserts! And usually with a nice cup of tea or coffee.
So, this weekend I will participate in conVERGE 2012 as a ‘live presenter.’ This high-tech, high-touch savvy conference at Gull Lake Center in Michigan is one of my favorites and I look forward to it every year.
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Courtesty of @istockphoto/@pastie
I remember the first time I ever preached a sermon in a church. I kid you not, as I walked up the steps of the platform, a series of hidden emotions surprised me. Scenes like memories from church history flooded my mind as I neared the podium. I thought of Matthew 16 when Jesus declared to Peter and the others the authoritative and missional role his Church would have in the world. I thought of John Wesley and the circuit riders who worked so diligently and faithfully to plant churches throughout my country. And I thought of my dad, a pastor who I watched minister faithfully and effectively for years in his local communities. I knew that I was participating in a rich tradition … and taking on a great responsibility. And I wanted to do my best with that opportunity.
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The recent attention given to intergenerational ministry, Orange, Sticky Faith, and family-based youth ministry has prompted me to look at what we do in ministry through a new lens. If you stop to examine how often we youth and children’s workers work (often unaware we’re doing so) to become surrogate authorities/parents to children & teens, you’ll be surprised at what you may discover. I recently talked with parents of a teen who had scheduled a special family celebration for him and his grandparents on the same night as his youth ministry’s small group. When the teen texted his small group leader, the response was emotionally charged and questioned the boy’s ‘commitment’ level. Commitment to what? (small group) Over what? (parents and grandparents) And who will be committed to this boy four years later?
So, I’ve been looking at common practices in a new light. I wonder if we trust parents and families. I wonder if we want families to be a primary source of faith development (see Deuteronomy 6 for more on that, though). Not sure I have it all figured out yet, but I’ve run across some cool ideas like this one:
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Last night I taught the first class of Fundamentals of Christian Leadership, a popular course in the nontraditional adult studies program at Bethel College (Indiana). Believe it or not, after 10 years here it was the first time for me to teach this course. And I was a bit nervous – as were the students. In fact, one lady shared, “I was praying as I walked in tonight ‘Lord, please don’t let this be a boring class… because if it’s boring I don’t know how I’m going to handle it.” So, the pressure was on me to keep it vibrant over the four hours that we meat each evening (the courses are in an accelerated format and meet for 7 weeks).
I think as we moved the tables into a square for discussion-based learning in community, most of the students (they ranged in ages from 21 to 60-ish) soon realized that this wasn’t lecture/PowerPoint time. In fact, I told them that I probably wasn’t going to show them a single PowerPoint all semester. I just don’t think the course material lends itself to a ‘content dump’ of knowledge. Instead, it’s a leadership development course with content interspersed.
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One of my first academic presentations took place at AERA’s (American Educational Research Association) national conference, a large conference of over 10,000 attendees. I wish I could do it all over again – it didn’t go poorly, but it didn’t sizzle either – and it just wasn’t that strong.
Since that day, I have presented a few times and I’ve watched hundreds of other presenters (graduate students, practitioners, and tenured professors) take their research and invested subjects and work to communicate it in a memorable way. At one conference I saw a presentation that struggled along, so I began to jot down some guidelines that would help my graduate students avoid a similar experience. read more…
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I usually find it ironic that students who complain about how boring their teachers are perform no differently when given the chance to teach or present in a classroom. It’s more difficult, or it takes more work, than they realize. Often students don’t do anything more than read hastily-organized thoughts from either from a paper or PowerPoint.
I’ve been fortunate to have some captivating student presentations through the years, a tribute to the creativity and dedication of some of the youth ministry students at Bethel College (IN).
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