David sang to the LORD the words of this song when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said:
“The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield and the horn of my salvation.
He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—
from violent men you save me.
I call to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
and I am saved from my enemies.
“The waves of death swirled about me;
the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
The cords of the grave coiled around me;
the snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called to the LORD;
I called out to my God.
From his temple he heard my voice;
my cry came to his ears.
This is convention week. For the 5th time this year I will travel to a convention center to run social media. Two DCLAs (for students) and this is the third NYWC. (for youth workers)
I have the best job in youth ministry. I get to meet youth workers from all over the world and remind them that even though their jobs are hard and thankless… they are being used by God to further His Kingdom.
Awesome.
What’s different about this week is a little pre-convention trip to Pittsburgh on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Host of NYWC 08) There I’ll be hanging out with Travis Deans and a bunch of youth workers in the Pittsburgh area. Travis is hosting two meetings of youth workers and I’ll have the opportunity to speak to them and with them. Such a blast! Travis and I lived on the same residence hall floor at Moody. That seems like about 10 billion years ago but I guess it was 1994-1996. We reconnected last Fall in Pittsburgh and I was stoked to learn that he’s been doing youth ministry since graduation! I will see if I can muster up a story about Travis to embarrass him. I may have to make one up.
Wednesday night I fly down to Atlanta. The last U.S. convention is always the largest so that will make it a lot of fun. Since Thursday is normally my travel day to convention I will be working from my hotel room all day on normal work stuff. That said, I do have one detour planned! I’ve been a user and fan of Mailchimp for a couple of years. Their offices are in downtown Atlanta and I hope to pop in on them Thursday to see where they keep the monkeys.
Friday through Monday… you won’t hear from me but I’ll be covering NYWC. (lots of live streaming of our rich line-up of speakers) Typically at convention, I’m busy all day with convention work and meal times are dominated by lunch with people I only see once per year. It’s hard to explain working through a convention season, it goes by fast and slow at the same time. I’ll blink and it’ll be Tuesday morning.
I fly home on Tuesday the 24th, picking up a rental car, and heading home to do some laundry. Wednesday through Sunday… we’re headed to San Jose for Thanksgiving! My cousin and his family live up there and we thought it’d be a blast to hang out with them over the holidays. (And see the Notre Dame vs. Stanford game.) The last time Kristen and I were in San Jose was 2000! So I’m looking forward to that.
The crazy thing about the next 2 weeks of travel? It’s my last scheduled trip. Last year, I had a similarly strangle travel schedule before the holidays… then didn’t leave San Diego county for almost 6 months!
Blog posts during the next two weeks will be typical. Sporadic and random.
I’ve been so busy working on spreading the word about National Youth Workers Convention that I’ve literally forgotten to post about three exciting things I’m a part of in all 3 cities.
1. The FUN team is back and better than ever! Last year was YS’s first serious forray into social media during a live event. We didn’t really know what it should look like and we did some stuff great and not-so-great at others. This year I have a great team of volunteers in each city and we’ll be focusing on bringing together some fun live elements, some relections, and some video.
2. Social Networks, Video, and Your Ministry. I’ll be leading a grande lab with my co-worker and flipping video genius, Ian Robertson. If you want to learn how to mix social media skills with the power of video in your ministry… I will dare say this will be valuable for you. We really are going to show you how to use cheap cameras, cheap editing software, and great ideas into video magic for your group. Sure, we have high end “pro” toys we could show of. But true skill is using what you have to make something great.
3. Teens and Technology fishbowl. I’m not really “teaching” this one, but in all three cities I’ll be facilitating a fishbowl conversation around this important topic. I have no real idea where it’ll go and that’s the joy of a fishbowl. But it will be fun to see what the problems are that are out there and come up with some solutions.
If you’re on the bubble about coming this year, I just want to encourage you to make it happen. Unlike any other time in convention history… participants will be shaping the conversation of the convention. And that conversation will just be beginning at NYWC… more on that later.
