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NYWC Pittsburgh: It begins

5 hours of sleep. If that much. I woke up at 9, showered, packed my 30-lb bag of gear, and prepared for the first day of the convention. Well, technically, Friday is the first day. Today is all pre-game. YS changed up their regular schedule this year for the Critical Concern Courses. Instead of having the first part between 1 and 6pm, it was 6-9pm. And so, we had the entire morning and afternoon to explore Pittsburgh. We made our way back to Steel City Diner (we were there 3 years ago) where, dining with Samantha and Janelle, I had quite tasty a bacon cheeseburger. I got a phone call from Adam after eating, and so I left a bit early to go get the stuff I needed to liveblog the convention from him at HQ. There, I got to talk to @mclanea, @pattigibbons, and @fess2us for about 10 minutes while getting a tour of the backstage area of the convention. Apparantly, my helping with the liveblogging earned my an “all access” pass. Very cool and very unexpected. Anyway, I soon had to return to my group, so we parted ways.

Afterwards, we went on a little excursion through Pittsburgh. We walked through downtown and crossed the Smithfield St bridge on our way to the Monongahela Incline Plane. It’s kind of like a little tram that scales the side of a steep cliff and takes you to a scenic overlook of the entire greater Pittsburgh area. We spent some time at the overlook, taking many pictures and beholding the glory of Pittsburgh.

Afterwards we saw a sign for a nearby ice cream shoppe and made our way there. They gave you a ridiculous amount of ice cream for quite cheap. Good business.

Then, after a quick nap, it was time to check in to the convention and make our way to our Critical Concern Course. Manny and I took “The Present Future of Youth Ministry: Rethinking Traditional Youth Ministry Models.” Very good class. It deals with many things I have been wrestling with with our own youth ministry. It’s all about looking at the reasons we do ministry the way we do, where we have been, and where we need to go in order to be relevant and effective in the future. It’s a lot about refocusing on what is really important and moving in that direction even if it means shutting down pre-existing programs. We’re only half way done, so I’m excited to see what will come tomorrow.

So, it’s almost 1:30am right now. I have to be awake at 6:30 to get ready and pack and be out the door. I saw a Crazy Mocha nearby here while on our walkabout and I’m wondering if they have quality Chai tea there. I may, if I awaken early enough, make my way there before my class continues at 8:30. Also now, I am waiting for a video to finish encoding so I can upload it to Vimeo. It still has 26 minutes remaining, and though I wanted to include it in this post, I think I’ll just do it tomorrow morning.

Until then… stay up, stay true, more importantly, stay you.

On this day…

• 2008: More blogging friends — Well, maybe “friend” isn’t the correct word for it. [...]
• 2008: NYWC Pittsburgh: We’re here! — The drive wasn’t that bad. We arrived in [...]
• 2006: Shoutout — Shoutout to Jessie. Cause I told her I would [...]

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