Ah… winter.
A quick scan of social media reveals that folks living in Michigan, Northern Indiana, and the Chicago area are completely sick of winter.
The supreme irony of our living in San Diego is that we’re Midwesterners who love a good midwest winter. We’d get 6 inches of snow and Kristen was ecstatic about shoveling the driveway. I absolutely loved giving people a hard time about canceling things because it was cold or a bit icy.
So, a year ago, I scheduled our very first Open Grand Rapids right in the middle of winter. On purpose! My hope was that people would have a little cabin fever and look forward to something to get out of the house for on a cold Saturday.
Welp, um… I was wrong. The weather was a bit of a sucker punch and we had a very hard time getting people to come out.
Year one was great: But year two will be a lot better!
This year’s Open Grand Rapids is March 28th (SPRING!) on the campus of Cornerstone University. If you aren’t familiar with the format we have a great line-up of presenters presenting on real-life stuff from all over the region. Instead of the “big national organization” bringing in a group of ringers to offer big-box-version youth ministry training without local context, we recruit local youth ministry experts to offer training to fellow workers doing youth ministry right in that same context. So don’t expect polish or production or anything fancy about Open Grand Rapids. But do expect a very full, very high quality day of youth ministry training for just $25. (No one gets paid and most of the money gets donated back to a local organization & the local organizer team.)
The kicker? What our presenters lack in the experience of doing the same seminar dozens of times per year, they more than make up for in real-life experience.
What has became so evident at our 3rd Open Boston a couple weeks ago is that with a little bit of experience, some feedback/coaching, that the quality of training is just as good as any I’ve seen.
So that’s the scoop on Open Grand Rapids. I hope to see you there.
[button link=”http://grandrapids.openym.org”]VISIT THE WEBSITE[/button]
[button link=”https://theyouthcartel.com/events/open-grand-rapids-2015/”]REGISTER HERE[/button]
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