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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This weekend I will be speaking at one of Miracle Camp’s ICE CAMPS. For a variety of reasons, I limit the amount of speaking and travel I do. One of the benefits of this is that Kel and I can choose where we want to spend those open times. And one rule we have at home is that I am not gone back-to-back weekends. However, this month we’re making an exception to that rule so that I can participate with two groups that I admire and think are doing an amazing work.
Miracle Camp is one of my favorite camps in the US and whenever Jason and Emily Coon ask me to come speak, I work it out so that I can say, “Yes.” Miracle Camp has incredible and versatile facilities just sout
h of Kalamazoo, Michigan. But better than the facilities, the staff are seasoned professionals who care about camping …. and do it well. I’m also excited to see Michelle Mason, one of our Bethel College youth ministry graduates, working on her post-grad internship there.
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This week we were reminded of the dire economic situation facing the youth of the world. Since 23.5% of the world’s poor are youth and 75 million youth are unemployed (a number that will keep growing), this presents significant challenges for governments, agencies, churches, and ministries (not to mention families!) in many regions of our world. In fact, all over the world, even the US, high school and college graduates will be in much poorer economic situations than their parents and especially their grandparents were at their age.
When I look over the ‘field’ of youth ministry, I sometimes grow concerned that we can become a vocation focused on running programs, teaching/speaking lessons, or even a personal exercise in leadership and personal status versus one based on Christlike service. As I read through Scripture on ministry like a ‘shepherd’ (I Peter 5:1-11) and the missional and service focus of the New Testament church, I wonder what our responsibility is to the youth in our community, our region, our country, and around the world.
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Kel and I love our home church. For the past 11 years we’ve been fortunate to attend Nappanee Missionary Church where Dave Engbrecht serves as the senior pastor. Since Kel and I have focused a lot of our work and writing on missions and global youth, NMC’s missional emphasis resonates with us. Recently Dave spoke on courage (from Joshua 1) and I thought it was full of helpful concepts.
He said that we develop confidence in our life from (at least) three sources: read more…
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As I drive to YSPalooza in Chicago with Seth Bartlette (from RemedyLive.com and one of our youth ministry graduates from Bethel College-Indiana), I thought it appropriate to make a small announcement (which has already been announced, but it’s a bit more official now).
First, some backstory: For years I have had the privilege of attending numerous National Youth Workers Conventions. The Nashville NYWC has always been a bit of a transitional point for me it seems. I love YS’s work and always feel ‘at home’ when I attend their conferences. I can’t sing “Blessed Be the Name” without thinking of the St. Louis convention after YS founder Mike Yaconelli died and Chris Tomlin came out and began the conference singing, “He gives and takes away….. He gives and takes away….”
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A few months ago, I told the story of how the TALKSHEETS books came about. I had the privilege of writing two bible studies for youth in the very successful youth group curriculum series. The good folks at Zondervan have a practice of sending authors a copy of a book when there are additional printings. This past week I received a copy and notice that of another printing for MIDDLE SCHOOL TALKSHEETS: LIFE OF CHRIST.
It’s been fun to see this be so well-received. I’ve heard from Christian camping leaders, from volunteer leaders in small rural churches, and youth pastors in large mega-churches who use the lessons and like them. They’ve found them easy to use, engaging for their teens, and biblically solid.
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Photo courtesy of @istockphoto\@CEFutcher
In a recent discussion on books for teens, one of the group members stated they didn’t want a book to be too ‘churchy’. I’m sure we’ve all used that word before, particularly in youth ministry settings where we want to demonstrate relevance to ‘today’s teen’. But I think the word is problematic, even though its use may be appropriate in some cases.
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