• I needed this break

    I’ve been here in Cincy since early Thursday morning. At times I’ve been distracted away from the convention itself, at times I’ve been interested in using it as a lab, at times I’ve loved it and at times I’ve loathed it. I am, by nature, a critique-er of things more than an enjoy-er of things… so it’s a struggle from the moment I park until the moment I leave to just chill out.

    But here’s the thing. Part 1

    I needed this. Today marks only the second worship service I’ve missed at Romeo in 2006. I don’t want to raise my hands up and say "I’m skipping church!" as a show of pride or to say that missing church is good or to give others an excuse for missing church today or something…. because that isn’t it… I just want to say to myself, "It’s probably a good thing."As Andy Stanley says, sometimes in order to work on it you’ve got to get away from it. I’ve been able to do that this week.

    Here’s the thing. Part 2

    This needed me. I have no real role here but to participate. But somehow in the collective spirit of it all, I needed to be here to attend and learn.

    Here’s the thing. Part 3

    I was and am tired. I think I needed to be here so that I could get back to just being tired… I was somewhere between exhaustion and something else on the scale of boundless energy and burn out… so I needed to step back and just chill for a few days. I want to be in this thing for the long haul… so resting is part of that. Plus, on my "time off" map… this is the very beginning of a rest period for me as I’ll have a few more days off before the end of December. That rocks!

    Here’s the thing.     Part 4

    I don’t know how to explain this, but I think it’s actually good for Romeo that I’m not there today. In my mind I like to be there on Sunday mornings because I like to be with our people and I feel "needed." It’s good for me to be away and say "The church made it from 1840-2003 without me, it’s going to be ok if I’m not there on November 19th, 2006."

    Here’s the thing. Part 5

    I miss my family. I miss not having Kristen here. I see other couples here together and I wish we had been able to scrape enough money for both of us to be here. But at the same time our last vacation was "for the family" and I think there is room for me to have some time on my own.

    Here’s the thing. Part 6

    I’ve loved the fun times with new friends, connecting with YMX forumites, and just generally blessing people and getting blessed. I’ve loved the inside jokes and the late late late nights and butt early mornings. That said, I can’t wait to try doing this again in the future with Kristen too.

  • NYWC Saturday

    It’s after midnight now, but I wanted to leave some impression on Saturday before going to bed.

    – I went to a session called "Smash Mouth Youth Ministry for Boys" this morning and learned a lot. I went there because I see we have a guy problem in LF and I want to be a part of making things more balanced. This not only gave me some things to do, it also gave me some potential reasons how we’ve gotten in this pattern to begin with.

    – I went to breakfast this morning in the hotel. I was just going to bite the bullet and pay the ridiculous prices. When I sat down another convention person asked me if I’d like to sit at his table since he was alone as well. Long story short, he picked up my breakfast and I was thankful. Not only that, but I had a great engaging conversation with a person from Grosse Point. I left that time very encouraged.

    – The morning session was incredible. Atmosphere and music was great, talent great, and the speaker was incredible. It was a female who talked about our identity and the identity we should be teaching our students… actually another idea I can implement into LF soon.

    – I spent the afternoon doing my research. I spent about an hour at two booths just observing. I learned an incredible amount of stuff…. all very intriguing to me and hopefully helpful to the companies when I present my report later. I’m looking forward to sitting down with the heads of those booths on Sunday and doing the rest of the interview. (Holding back the "who" on this since I’ve agreed to keep stuff confidential)

    – Of course, I watched the Michigan vs. Ohio State game. They set up a little tailgate area for the convention folks to watch the game and that was a lot of fun. Marko, from YS, did make good on his dare to wear the Michigan jersey here today…. I give him a lot of credit as it took some guts.

    – Tonight I hung out more with my convention pals. Mel, Carl, Chris, and Angela had a great time sitting very near the front tonight. All told, I’ve met about 20-30 YMX people and really enjoyed getting to know Huntington folks and Detroit Youth Workers in a new context. I’ve really felt connected to people here… much cooler than the last time we went. (Sac 02)

    – Tonight’s session was special in a lot of ways. I won’t share a lot of details because I know that there is one more to come. But I thought it was great.

    – Don’t know a lot of details about this, but we took an offering for a family who does youth ministry, and who has a child suffering from leukemia, and raised $14,000.

    Lots of random thoughts!

  • Friday at NYWC

    Several thoughts from today. Sorry if they are random…

    • First session was great. We sat about 200 rows back… no lie… and still had a great time. Kudos to Marko for the quote of the first session. He said something like "Hey, feel free to try stuff new… but make sure you put new batteries in your crap detector and turn it on high." Classic line… I know it’s not new but it caught me.
    • Crowder was great today. In the first session he got tickled (laughing that is) by some people near the stage. More fun than usual… very funny stuff.
    • Donald Miller’s talk was a load IMO. While I appreciate him and his way of inspiring so many, and yet he completely contradicted himself if you actually listened to him. No disrespect, but it was pretty typically emergent. He spent 20-25 minutes telling us that our current way of church teaches a bad message of a transaction that isn’t true. "If you do this, you will get something good." While I disagreed with his assessment in general, I was OK until he came to his conclusion at the end. At the end he gave us a transaction… if you do ministry this way, you will gain this. (He shared a testimony of him doing ministry "the right way.") So, I was really disappointed in his talk.
    • That said, he said something that was noteworthy: He said that in the model of ministry we use today, a business-minded model, the sad reality is that ministry professionals are treated like managers than ministers… as soon as we don’t provide our worth vs. spending, we are out the door. I like that thought.
    • The YMX Meet-up was awesome! The location was a little shady, but we had a great time. There were a total of 12 of us… and let’s just say that I no fully understand why they changed the name to East End Cafe… because locals call it "The Brothel." It wasn’t that kind of place really, just had a lot of fun with their former history.

  • Thursday at NYWC

    Well, I’d post some pictures but my camera is one of two things I forgot. (The other being my Bible!)

    My first day here has been incredible. Despite being really tired, I met tons of new people and saw some old friends. My class went great today (phew) and I’m really looking forward to doing some interviews and research tomorrow and Saturday involving vendors and exhibitors.

    Let’s see, tonight I met up with some YMX people: Jeff Greathouse, Becky and Kevin Jones, Melissa (who’s name is not Michelle) Jason Raitz, and a few more who’s names I can’t remember.

    From my Michigan network, I’ve seen Dave from Faith Lutheran and Jimmy from the Flintish area.

    Tonight, I went and saw Leeland and Starfield… two rockin’ new bands. Small show, great show.

  • I’m Here!

    After a rainy drive and a restless night of sleep (roughly $20/hour for that nap.) I am here at the Duke Energy Center in Cincy.

    The convention areas look perfect for the weekend. I’ve been watching and observing a lot of the fun stuff here so far. I’m going to be especially interested to notice "weird" behavior and hoping to document some of the here. So far, seen one dude dressed up with coconut shells and fake blond hair. (Flashback to last nights game at LF!)

    Class is going great. In a few minutes we’re going to go listen to Chap Clark talk about the research behind his book, Hurt.

  • Things I am looking forward to in Cincy

    CincinnatiThis will be my first trip to Cincinnati and I’m going into it with a few hopes. Being that this is my second NYWC I know what to expect, I anticipate what I’ll like and dislike about the convention itself.

    Purposes
    Unlike the first time, I’m going under a few "mixed" purposes. First, I’m going as a learner. My class with Huntington starts up in about 18 hours and I’m pretty excited about it. The idea of doing lab work surrounded by our target audience… very cool. Second, I’m going as a youth pastor. After all, this is what the conference is all about. I’m going to learn and observe what Youth Specialties thinks is "hot" in youth ministry. I love the break-out sessions and I’m greatly looking forward to learning some stuff I didn’t know. Thirdly, I’m going as an ambassador for YMX. We’re not vending there or presenting there, but I am looking forward to meeting up with some people from our incredible online community.

    Pre-Convention Hopes

    1. Rest. I need some of this. Schedule-wise, I don’t know how this will tangibly happen. But I do plan on skipping the occasional session just to "be" Adam and rest. There has got to be a hot tub with my name on it.
    2. Small groups strategies. I want to hear what some of the smart guys are doing with their small group ministry.
    3. Games and worship development: These are two things Light Force is getting better at… but could use a shot in the arm about.
    4. Elbow rubbing: I want to chat with a lot of people I know "in the biz" of youth ministry. I look forward to meeting vendors, practitioners like me, academics, presenters, and maybe even a performer or stage presenter or two.
    5. Fun. Man, I need a good shot of fun. Not childishness really, just some goofing off and a firm reminder that I’m only 30 and not 75.
    6. Record some interviews. YMX is going to launch a podcast by the end of November… so I’m looking to interview 10-20 people. Forum users and "known people" alike. While I’m not the only one participating in the podcast development, I’m going to try to use the convention as a place where I can get some material.
    7. Reflection: I’m ready to listen to God for a while. I feel like I do to much of the talking.
    8. Serving others somehow. I look forward to helping however I can. Being that I’m all alone at the convention, I’ve got no excuses.

    Note: I’ll be checking in regularly during the next few days. It’s the role of an introvert to be introverted when surrounded by extroverts.

  • Clean dog

    Tubbytime
    This wasn’t all that momentous of a thing, but it was pretty cool. But we just got done giving Stoney a bath. Paul acted as the gate and Kristen and I lured Stoney into the bath room. After some manipulation (20 minutes or so) he got in the bath.

    So, our dog smells good for a couple of days.

  • Is MySpace dying?

    Maybe this is just my perception. And maybe I am totally and completely wrong here. But I think the phenomenon is fading quickly. I don’t hear nearly the buzz about MySpace that I did a year ago, and definitely not the fever pitch of 6 months ago.

    I have a theory about the end of this site. (Not that it will die… I’m sure it will be profitable for years to come. I’m just talking about this perception that youth culture is abandoning the site.) As more adults became aware of the site, and as more companies began to invest in this "emerging market" the people they were reaching fled to somewhere less known.

    See, the thing that students liked is that it was "MySpace" and not "YourSpace." It was a place that adolescents could hide and share their emotions free from parents, teachers, and prying youth pastors like me.

    As soon as that false sense of "my space" was gone    … the site started to be adult space and not adolescent space. So, they are leaving… The quickest way to make something "uncool" to students is to fill it with old people trying to be cool and one more place where companies are making money off of them, they check out.

    Experts say that this generation of students is looking for something that is authentic. When myspace was an underground thing, it was real. Now that it’s loaded full of major companies and oodles of adults, it’s not authentic to them anymore.

    I could also be wrong. Been wrong before. But the new student site… it’s not facebook… it’s… well, I can’t tell anyone.

  • Trekking 2 Peter1

    Trekking_title1Yesterday I had the pleasure (and, um… duty?) of filling in for Bob as he wrapped up  a conference in the Atlanta area. I’m looking forward to having him back… and in just a couple of days I’m off to a conference of my own for a week. OK, the truth is that the conference is just 5 days… but I’m tacking on a couple of days to both the front and back end of it for R&R.

    Yes, I’ve even included a link to the video intro I used for the message yesterday. I posted my notes in the link below. (The audio will be on the church site sometime Tuesday.)

    (more…)

  • I need to have this

    This is a guy named Jeff Han. I need this thing that he’s developing. I don’t know what I’d use it for, but this is one of the most incredible bits of technology I’ve seen in a long time.

    Learn more about this here.