So I’m writing this from a bench in St Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Be jealous. This is part two of my autumn vacation, NYWC Pittsburgh being part one. I’m here for a friend’s wedding. They wanted to get married in the Islands and so here we are. Actually, I think I’m the only one here as of right now. I’m waiting for two friends to arrive via a different flight. But we shall talk more of this adventure at a later time.

This is about NYWC… final thoughts, stories, ideas, etc. Ok, well this probably won’t be the last post on NYWC, but it will be the last one of substantial text. I have a few more videos I need to render down and then I’ll post those on Vimeo and embed them here for your viewing pleasure.

But what of NYWC, now that I’ve been home for a few days and have had time to process it all? I must say that this was a different convention for me. It felt different. Perhaps part of it is due to the economic situation in the US. There were a lot let people there than usual. The Exhibit Hall felt like it was suffering from the crappiness of the American dollar as well. There were, it seemed, far less exhibitors than normal. In all, though, YS did a great job putting on the Convention despite all the financial difficulties they must have run into.

I relaxed a lot more this year than in years past. I remember my first NYWC… Atlanta 2004. Like most n00bs, I tried to go to as much as possible and see all the sights, visit all the exhibits, talk to all the people…. and it was madness. I’ve learned to slow down… perhaps to join the “Slow Club” as referenced in Mark Yaconelli‘s General Session talk. I think I only went two one or two seminars. I did go to all the General Sessions, and I walked around the Exhibit Hall, though didn’t nearly feel the need to go talk to everyone or try to get all their free stuff. I slept a lot. A lot a lot. On the Sunday of the Convention I was charging my gear in my hotel room while on lunch. After lunch we decided to skip the seminar and go play some Rock Band in the YS Store. After that I headed back to the hotel to get my stuff and then go to the subsequent seminar. The next thing I knew, it was an hour later and I was on the bed. I love those kinds of naps. Anyway, there was a significant amount of relaxation and loafing about this year. It was exactly what I needed.

Yet, I still learned. I’ve talked before about my Critical Concern Course in a previous entry, but it seems that a lot of the Convention built on similar concepts and principles. There seemed to be a buzz about new ways to do ministry, forgetting the machine of YM of the past with all the crazy games and, basically, “babysitting,” and letting real discipleship and mentoring be the focus… doing life together and embracing the Way of Jesus. It ran through many of the General Session speakers, and especially hit home in the teaching of Francis Chan. It was topic of conversation in hallways and during free time. And it resonated loud and clear. I think, for the first time, this year I finally understood the concept that has been existent in NYWC’s of the past… that we need to “grow smaller.” It’s making me rethink what youth ministry is really about. It’s making me evaluate the things we are doing really good in The Bridge and the things that we could do better. Marko ended the Convention really well during General Session #7. He had a talk planned that he had been working on for months, and then at the last moment he felt God telling him that he needs to talk about something else. And he listened. And it was phenomenal. It wrapped everything together so well, and there was something in the way he was talking where it almost seemed it wasn’t him talking but God just speaking through him. I have the recordings of my Critical Concern, Francis Chan‘s talk, and Marko’s on mp3 waiting to be re-listened to so I can really get a grasp on what it all means.

The above video is from the group Living Illusions. They go around the country performing stunts and other acts and give stories or messages that tie into what is being done on stage. They don’t do so much magic tricks, though they do on occasion, but rather stunts. The video is of their full-view Water Torture Cell. There’s no trick to it. Kristen really has to hold her breath for that long and pick all the locks to get free from the cell. Pretty amazing.

It was a great Convention. I almost wish I could go to the Nashville one as well later in the month to take more of it in. I’ll have to wait until Cincinnati next year, though. Thanks, YS for a great weekend!

So here’s this week’s YS Podcast (episode #12), recapping NYWC Pittsburgh. There’s some concert footage, of which I had the honor of recording some. Make sure you check out the MercyMe shots to see the work of my shaky hand.

Also, there’s a lot of interviews mixed into the show from people in our group. Keep an eye out for Armando, Janelle, Elliott, Romulo, and Jesus. Also making an appearance, new Twitter friend, Sara. I have some pictures (to be posted soon to Flickr) from the interview time atop the Pittsburgh Convention Center roof and from our hanging out with Adam after the convention ended.

I’m sitting in my hotel room as Jesus and Carlos are talking about the past day. I can’t believe it’s almost over. Tomorrow is the last day of the Convention. It’s weird… we’ve been here for quite awhile, arriving Wednesday night, but it feels like it has gone so fast as well. There’s been so much going on and I’m pretty exhausted.

I’ve taken it pretty easy this year. I’ve only gone to a couple seminars, though I have been at every General Session, especially as I really can’t live blog something if I’m not present. I’ve spent time relaxing and hanging out with people, some who I have known for a long time and some I have just met. There has been much Rock Band playing (which is awesome) and much napping (which is even more awesome). Actually, and this is a true story, I came back to my hotel after a hearty lunch and subsequent Rock Band playing to get my gear for the pending General Session. I remember coming in the room, but then there is a blur. The next thing I remember is that it was an hour later and I was on the bed. This is an epic win as far as I am concerned. I may actually try to make it to the 9am class tomorrow, though. Of course this will only be after I make my way back over to Crazy Mocha for some more of their delicious chai tea.

What else has been happening? Well, if you have already played the above embedded video you may be wondering what the deal is with this chili pepper challenge. If you have not yet watched it, you should do so now. I’ll wait.

Ok, here’s the deal: sermonspice.com is a website that provides video resources for teachings and messages. They have some really great stuff there. Well, they had a booth in the NYWC exhibit hall in which they had three varieties of pepper available. The challenge was to take a pepper and eat it. A successful eating would earn you $25, $35, or $60 – depending on which level of heat-intensity you chose. Elliott, Jesus, and I were together when we found it. Elliott and I are the two who took the challenge. Jesus refused and said that he would never do it. Well, I took the middle-grade pepper and, let me tell you, it was a lot hotter than I expected. I started crying from it, and my throat felt as if it was closing up. Then I started to lose my voice. Good times. Anyway, then I made it my goal to get more people to take up the challenge. The above video is Janelle and Jesus’ (yes, he caved) encounter with the peppers. I do have footage of some others, but that will wait for another time.

I had the opportunity to hang out back stage for a few General Sessions while liveblogging. It was pretty cool. I mean, there’s nothing extraordinarily special about “backstage” or the “green room,” but it was still a fun experience. I got to talk, albeit briefly, with Matt Maher, Tommy and Eddie from the Skit Guys, Marko and Tic, and a few others. I also got to play a bit with YS‘s HD camera and record some convention footage for their podcast. I hope it comes out ok… or at least is usable. I’ve also got a bunch of footage from Matt Maher, Shane and Shane, and David Crowder*Band’s concerts. Hopefully I can put those together soon.

I’m going to be getting a couple of the General Session and maybe some seminars on mp3 after the convention is done. Even though I’ve had to follow what the speakers are saying to blog it, it’s still been hard to really take it in and process it all. I’m excited to re-listen to Francis Chan‘s talk. It was really amazing and I want to go back to really get a grasp on it.

I also had the opportunity to bring a few friends (those who I could get in contact with and who responded) backstage with my YS friend, Adam, for a little tour after a General Session was over. Janelle and Jenn came back to see what was going on back there and then we all were able to have a chat with Adam about what it takes to put on NYWC and some other things. We also talked about things we were doing back in NJ and he expressed how YS would love to help us with some of it. Exciting stuff.

There’s more to say, but it’s late here, and there’s a lot to do tomorrow. I’ll leave the rest for tomorrow’s entry. I’ll have more pictures posted sometime tomorrow and hopefully another video or two as well. Until then…

PS: Follow me on Twitter

I’ve been helping Youth Specialties to live blog their 2008 National Youth Worker’s Convention in Pittsburgh, and they set up a table for us to be stationed at inside the tech booth. While there, I propped my camera up and recorded some of Starfield leading the people in a time of worship.

This is Starfield covering the song “Hosanna” originally by Hillsong.

NYWC officially began today. But before that, we still had to finish up our Critical Concern Course. I begrudgingly woke up early and made my way to the 8:30 start time for part 2 of The Present Future of Youth Ministry. Let me just say that this class was amazing. If this is the only thing I take this weekend, it was worth the price of admission.

There was a lot of discussion in the class on where youth ministry has been – stretching as far back as the mid 1800′s. We looked at traditional models for YM and “how we got to where we are.” Something I didn’t realize is that the “normal model” we use as a general for youth ministry today is the same as was used in the 1940′s. We looked at cultural changes since then and what it looks like to be a teenager in that time and what it looks like to be a teenager now. The basic idea is that culture has changed so much that we cannot pursue the same models of yesterday and expect them to relate the same to youth in 2008. We went over ideologies on where we need to move from and to. Some examples are that we need to move from program-focus to people-focus – meaning that our program is irrelevant and we need to focus on the kids. Brock, our speaker, even suggested such extreme moves as to cancel your regular program and just go to where the kids are, as his group has done. Really revolutionary ideas. Other concepts, and most are tied together, are that we need need move from being attraction-based to missional based ministries, we need to stop teaching only salvation but focus on the way of Jesus instead. We need to move away from a centralized structure to a decentralized structure. Really, the concept is that we need to stop worrying so much about our traditional programs and focus on the kids themselves. Meet kids where they are. Reach out to them in their real lives. Don’t try to get them to come to us… go to them. It reminds me of something I heard on a podcast recently where the said that we need to stop treating the church as a business and let it be the Body. In the podcast they aslo posed the frightening question that “The Church is supposed to be the Body of Christ, but if a body becomes a business, doesn’t that make it a prostitute?” Anyway, the CCC really inspired me to pursue new, more relational, agenda-free ministry with the kids back home.

And then the conference began. I’ve been live blogging the General Sessions with @pattigibbons, @mattmcnutt, and @mclanea. You can read the full transcripts at nywc.com/live so I won’t go into much detail on what that’s like other than it’s really fun. I’ve been doing a lot of picture and video posts. I <3 media.

The sessions themselves are going really well. Starfield has led worship thus far and they are incredible. I learned they just released a new CD. I was going to buy it here, but I’d rather just get it on Amazon.

The speakers were great too. Mike Pilavachi spoke in the first session. I love his teachings. The only down-side is that he gave the EXACT same message this year as he did 2 years ago. It was a good message, and I as glad to hear it again, but I still would have liked to hear something new. In Session #2 they tried something different. There were 3 speakers who each spoke for 18 minutes. After each teaching there was 8 minutes of discussion and then 8 minutes of Q&A via text with the speaker. I really liked the format and would like to see more. Two of the speakers, Andrew Marin and Shoon-Chen Rah, spoke on really touchy subjects – homosexuality and racism. There was a bit of tension in the room at the start of their talks, but by the ends, great discussion was inspired. So cool.

I have to admit, I skipped the seminars for the day. Well, I went to a half hour of one with Jenn – Duff Robbins’ talk on teaching technique. We left, not because it wasn’t good… Duffy is an amazing speaker. We left to bow at the alter of the coffeeshop. We had a hankerin’ for some chai that needed remedy. And so we made our way to Crazy Mocha. They had a special drink available – the apple cider chai. It was sooo good. Tasted like warm, liquified, apple pie. We’re gonna go back in a day or two.

And it was Sarah’s 28th birthday on Friday as well. We went to eat at Mahoney’s restaurant on Liberty Ave. It was a really nice place. There was live music and entertainment the entire time we were there, and the pianist serenaded Sarah with one of her favorite songs, Piano Man by Billy Joel. The food took a bit of time to get out to us, and since I had to be back at the convention center for liveblog coverage of Session #2, and so I had to inhale my steak in about 5 minutes. I wish I could have stayed with the group, but alas.

This is getting long, so I’ll leave it at that. I will say that the convention has been incredibly fun and I’m loving every minute of it.

More to come soon.

While touring Pittsburgh before NYWC 2008 began, we found ourselves at the Monongahela Incline Plane. It’s kind of a tram that scales the side of an insanely steep clip and come out at an overlook where you can see the entire city of Pittsburgh from.

We spent some time at the top, taking pictures, and observing the scenery. And we had ice cream.

Also, see some of our pictures from NYWC.

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.

So it’s almost here. We’re leaving Wednesday night for Youth Specialites’ National Youth Worker’s Convention in Pittsburgh. Every year we gather a team from The Bridge and head out to one of the three conventions for a long weekend of training, encouragement, and rest in order to recharge or batteries as we prepare for another year of working with the kids in our program. It’s an amazing event.

This year is a little different for me because I have the privilege of helping YS do some new stuff while there. They tried, for the first time, liveblogging their Sacramento convention earlier this month, and it seems to have been a huge success. Well, during the Pittsburgh convention, I will be part of the liveblogging team helping to cover the event. Think of it as a real-time conversation somewhere between Twitter and a full-fledged blog, with an up-to-date stream of what’s happening that those at home can follow along with. The liveblog host, CoverItNow.com also supports photo and video uploads into the stream.

You’ll be able to follow the liveblog stream at http://nywc.com/live.

I’ll be joining an entourage of fine and talented bloggers from across the country. I don’t actually know who else will be covering the event, but trust me, they are youth workers of the highest quality and caliber.

My goal for the weekend is to also update my own blog, conveniently located right here in this very location, every day, or almost every day. In addition I will, as I have always done, take an obscene amount of photographs. I’d also like to take a lot of HD video there and put together a daily, or semi-daily recap of what is going on… maybe even a convention video when all is said and done. It really depends on how much time I have and where I am located in proximity to the action. And how quickly I can get the high-quality content out. I do also have my Flip Video camera for super quick film to upload, most likely while liveblogging.

Anyway, the convention starts on Thursday (for those taking a Critical Concern Course), of which I am one. We leave Elizabeth at 6pm Wednesday to make the 7-hour trek across Pennsylvania.

More to come soon.

For the past several years The Bridge leadership team has gone to Youth Specialties‘ National Youth Worker’s Convention for instruction, training, fun, relaxation, and to be ministered to in order that we might be able to provide the youth in our program with the best we can. It’s an amazing time and we look forward to it every year. We’re already planning and excited about going to the Pittsburgh convention this October. The training they provide is amazing and it’s really an incredible feeling being in the room with so many other people who are just as insane as you to willingly be involved with youth ministry.

And so we began to think a year or so ago… The Bridge has been around for about 8 years, with many of its leaders involved in youth ministry for significantly longer. We have a good deal of experiences and have learned a lot over the years… mostly because we have made so many mistakes along the way. Lots and lots of mistakes. We began to feel, I believe it was in the year 2006, that we were (somewhat naturally) moving to a place to not only minister to our youth but to other ministries. It felt like a natural next step that God was leading us in. We had an idea for a program we wanted to start to bring youth ministries together once a month… something that has proven difficult to do in the past. We sat on the idea while other matters took precedence.

Finally this year we decided to take action with these dreams that were brewing. It was time. Things happened in which we were brought together with another youth program, La Patrulla, in Elizabeth. To be honest, La Patrulla is the youth ministry of our spanish church. We always had the goal of working together as one, but it wasn’t until some events, which I won’t go into, that right from the beginning of 2008 we kind of melded into one group – though we still meet separately. The leadership teams help each other, hang out together, work together, etc. And we’ve noticed that we are so much more effective with this new synergy. We are in talks of how to further combine in the second half of 2008. But this merging made us realize that if two groups working together can be so much more effective, what would happen with 5 groups? 10 groups? 20 groups?

And so we came up with the idea for Equip. Equip is what we have called our leadership training classes in the past, but now Equip will evolve into something else. Something bigger. We want to bring youth ministries and youth workers from all around together for one massive day of training and networking. Though The Bridge is hosting it, the teaching, seminars, worship, etc will be shared by youth workers, pastors, business people, etc from around the Union Country area. We’ve already been in talks with some local youth workers, and have several ministries on board.

We call it an “open source youth ministry training project” because that’s just what it is. We realize that we’ll never be Youth Specialties and this will never be the National Youth Worker’s Convention, and that’s not the point of it. YS is, by far, one of the best providers of youth ministry resources out there. NYWC is huge. This will be much smaller, but hopefully will be able to help out the ministries of those who can’t afford the big conference. There’s a lot of poor churches here whose workers can’t afford to make the trip. Or perhaps they’ve never heard of or never thought of attending. The term “open source” fits because it is a collaboration of youth workers from all over coming together to minster to and train each other. Open Source is a style of programming in which the software’s code is part of the public domain. It’s not kept secret or private by the writers. It’s free for others to look at and tinker with and to edit. When the community works directly with the source code of the software, often the ending result is much better than what the original coders had in mind. Perhaps another phrase, maybe even a better phrase, that can be used is a “youth ministry training wiki.” We call it a project because, well, it is a project. We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but it’s exciting, and we’re hopeful. So while YS provides the big, full-featured training conference, we’ll try to have the same feel but on a smaller scale. It’s like comparing Microsoft Office, being the industry standard top-of-the-line suite, to Open Office, being the open source suite.

And so, to summarize this quite long piece, Equip is a project where youth ministers from all over will come to minister to and train youth workers from the area. The conference is free of charge to all who attend. Our purpose is to (1) create a unification and a bonding in the dozens and even hundreds of youth ministries surrounding our home, Elizabeth, NJ, and (2) to equip those who serve along side us to be the best they can so that the youth of the area can have the best that can be offered to them.

Equip is slated to take place June 7, 2008, in Elizabeth, NJ. In addition, we’ll be having an event the night before for the actual youth programs to come to and unite for a night, but I’ll write more about that later.