I feel like poo.
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NYWC Day One (early morning)
It’s 5:30 in the morning and I’m awake. Last night was a little like waiting for the first day of school. On the one hand, I was dog tired and needed to sleep because we’ve got a long day ahead of driving, setting up the booth, and meeting a couple hundred people at the "welcome reception" in the exhibit hall. On the other hand, I wasn’t able to relax enough to get into good sleep. (No fault of Chris and Angie who are incredible hosts!)
So, in an hour or so Todd and I will pack up and head out for 7 more hours of driving. Sleeplessness last night adds a whole new batch of emotions to the mix.
We had a great time deepening our friendship with Chris and Angie. One of the key things about being part of an online community is biting the bullet and transferring the virtual to real relationships. As Todd and I talked about that yesterday we see it as one of the last missing pieces of what it’s going to take for YMX to go to the next level.
For the curious, we hope to be live streaming from our booth sometime around 4 PM. (Depending on a lot of factors.) If we can get a decent connection we hope to do some live video on our Live Page.
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And iso it begins
As much as I love to travel, I hate leaving home when it is just me leaving. I already miss them.
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NYWC Day -1
As Patti noted yesterday, at this point there isn’t anything left we can do… we have to go with what we have. At 3 PM today Todd and I begin the journey to Atlanta. We’ll be spending the night at Chris and Angie’s house tonight and completing the drive Thursday morning. At this point there just isn’t much left to do.I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a little nervous about vending at YS for the first time. It’s a huge deal! And since I’m the one in charge of designing, training, and otherwise making our booth happen… I’m feeling the heat. I feel great about putting Youth Ministry Exchange in the exhibit hall for the first time, but I am definitely nervous.
From a leadership perspective I’ve got all the doubts running through my head. Do we have enough handouts? Did I spell something wrong and 3,000 people are going to tell me about it? Is the booth going to look good? Who are our booth neighbors? Is this too soon to vend or is it too late? Am I forgetting anything? Will anyone show up to my seminar? (I’m at 10:00 PM Saturday) How are we going to deal with people who are mean? Do I have the booth scheduled right? Will I regret giving away an iPod? Am I leading too much or am I taking charge or am I just a knucklehead that no one likes anyway? Will I say anything stupid? Will I be myself? How much money will we lose? What if no one has heard of us and they all think we’re a waste of time? Is this all a waste of money? Am I investing my time in Atlanta right?
On top of that, there is all the personal stuff. Because I’m going to the convention not just to be a vendor… I’m also going as an attendee. I am looking forward to sitting in on a couple of seminars that will help us in Light Force. I can’t wait to see all my favorite worship artists. I am looking to hanging out with friends. I am pumped about meeting blog/YMX friends for the first time. I can’t wait to see Angie and Chris tonight. I hope I don’t get a ticket driving 750 miles each way. I’m going to miss Kristen and the kids. I hope I don’t spend too much money on food and stuff like that. I hope that I am open to God leading and teaching me stuff that I need.
This conference always comes at a good moment for me. Despite all the work and planning that has gone into our booth in the exhibit hall, I also really need the encouragement that comes from being around people like me. I’ll find myself getting into so many conversations about youth ministry stuff. And typically, in church life, you have to explain everything about everything because not very many people "get" youth ministry. But when I’m at this conference, when I talk to people, they say "Yeah, I get that. That happens to me too." What a pleasure to be around people who get you!
My prayers for the convention. I pray that I am an encouragement to people at the conference. I pray that I receive the blessings and well wishing of others with grace. I pray that I am a giver of blessings. I pray that I go to learn more than teach. Listen more than talk and watch my mouth. I really want nothing negative to come out of my mouth. Amen.
What about you? For those who are going? How are you feeling? -
Guest Dip Story: Bobby Williams
Not too long ago I went hiking with a good friend of mine in the Smoky Mountains
of East Tennessee. The trail we chose started going downhill 2.5 miles,
then uphill the last 1 mile. We reached a great vista, beautiful mountain
top and had a great time. Then we had to come back…1 mile down hill and
then a painful climb 2.5 miles back uphill to our staging area. I’ll be
honest…I wanted to quit. It was hard. It wasn’t much fun at that
point. The problem was we were trying to make it back quicker than what it
took for us to make it to the mountain top. There was no steady
pace. In order to make it through THE DIP, when you come out of it
on your way back to the top, realize that you can’t do it in an hour, or a
day. Climbing mountains is about a steady pace, and so is
recovering from THE DIP. Here a few tips that might help you.- Know that THERE WILL BE A DIP
- Yes, it’s coming. At some point in your career there will be a dip
of some sort. Just like in hiking, if you go down, you have to come
back up to get a place where you want to be. Knowing there is a dip
coming ahead, whether you know when or not, you can pace yourself
accordingly.
- Yes, it’s coming. At some point in your career there will be a dip
- STAY in for the long haul
- I’ll be honest; when I was on that hike coming back up, I wanted to
quit. It was not fun. But I had committed to hiking with my
best friend a trail that we knew would be difficult. The reward for
finishing was the great memories we would have and the stories we could
tell about taking on very difficult task. Plus, we were out there, we
HAD to FINISH. I’ll make this short and sweet; don’t get into
ministry if you can’t handle failure, heat, and criticism; it’s gonna be
tough. I’ll even go one step further and say that if you don’t
already know that you’ll be in ministry for your lifetime, then just don’t
do it. God’s call on our lives is a lifetime call. When things
take a dip, we can’t quit and when it’s time to head up the mountain, we
must reach the top. Moses didn’t quit when faced with 40 years in the
wilderness leading a grumbling, ungrateful people. Demand to NOT
QUIT.
- I’ll be honest; when I was on that hike coming back up, I wanted to
- PACE yourself
- . Be healthy in your pace. Don’t overexert yourself.
Don’t try to arrive at your destination too soon. When you try and
do these things, you miss everything good around you, only trying to
achieve your goal. On our way back to the top of the mountain, we
totally forgot to enjoy the beauty around us. Part of hiking is
enjoying your surroundings. In fact, we were so focused on getting
to the top, we hardly talked, missing out on time we had together. A
steady pace would had remedied all of this and will do the same for you
when you’re coming out of your DIP.
- . Be healthy in your pace. Don’t overexert yourself.
Bobby Williams is Pastor of Student Ministry for New Life Fellowship in Clinton, Tennessee.
Sponsored by: Raising Lazarus: A Fund for Hurting Youth Workers.
- Know that THERE WILL BE A DIP
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An evolutionists report from the Creation Museum
Blogger John Scalzi’s was challenged to go to the Creation Museum by his readers. He said it wasn’t worth his time so he challenged readers to raise $250 for his favorite charity and he would attend. He ended up raising $5100.See John’s pictures
Read John’s Report (Parental advisory on the language)As a 6 day creationist, I’m not surprised by the commentary of an evolutionist. Are you?
What do you think of "Christian Tourism?" This place is likely super high on the list of every Christian school and home schooler’s field list, and that Christians are more than willing to part with their "in God we trust" bills for stuff like this… it’s not a bad investment of $27 million.
Would you take your children there? Your youth group?
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A solid beta test
You know, I should feel like tonight didn’t go well because only 4 students came to our worship night. But I can’t feel bad because it was a great run through and I got a glimpse of better things to come.
We had a fun game, solid worship, something experiential, a good talk, and a great snack. I think the room (we scaled the sanctuary down to about 25 seats) went really well and overall I think it was a good night.
It’s something to build on. I know that there were a number of schedule conflicts tonight with it… that’s going to happen no matter what night we offer it on. So, schedule junkies, the next LF worship night is Monday, December 10th @ 7 PM.
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Can you help Brian?
This is Brian. He’s a youth worker like a lot of the readers of my blog. Brian was a youth pastor for a long time… then earlier year he took a huge leap of faith and uprooted his family from Missouri to Washington so that he could
spend the summer working on a boat and kind of re-find something. (People in ministry know exactly what this feels like.)Here’s the deal. At the end of the summer Brian got seriously ill on board the boat. He had to be evacuated from the boat off the coast of Alaska and was flown back to Seattle where he learned he needed a kidney transplant and would need to go on dialysis immediately.
Long story short, Brian is out of money. He is the father of two and his wife is working… but with mounting medical bills and his complete inability to work they are in serious trouble. Brian has applied for help, he is seeking social security benefits, and all the other state aid programs they can… but that stuff takes more time to get started than they have money to make it through.
This is where Raising Lazarus comes in. I have the pleasure to partner with Patti as a board member of RL and I know it’s an incredible thing. Basically, we take no money out of donations and get them to the people who need them. (Who needs administrative costs?)
So this is what I’m asking
If you are able, would you be willing to contribute to Raising Lazarus for Brian and his family? As with any solicitation that RL does… we want to be perfectly clear. Don’t give us money if you aren’t tithing to your church. This would be something "over and above" all your normal things. But if you are willing to go without a couple of movie rentals or cups of coffee at Starbucks, you could make a big difference. Literally, you can help keep a family just transplanted into a new town and new state with no network, mounting medical bills, and mouths to feed in their home.If you would like to contribute something, ANYTHING, to Brian and his family. Here is a link.
