Tag: national youth ministry conference

  • Holy Travel Schedule Batman

    scheduleThis is more of a confessional post than anything else. I can feel my travel schedule getting out of control. In 2007, Kristen and I carefully managed our schedule to maximize our time together. It was fantastic spending so much one-on-one time with the love of my life.

    Then reality struck back. Here’s a quick rundown of what I’m currently trying to jam into the next 12 months… these are the temptations of a networking-crackhead. A true one-week family vacation. A YMX getaway. Two or three National Youth Worker Conventions 08. Internet Ministry Conference 08. National Youth Ministry Conference 09. Shift 09. Staff retreats, Light Force mission trip, and of course… more family trips. Did I mention that next week I’m headed to a 3 day conference? Yeah.

    Every single one of those are good things. Great things! I love every one of these opportunities. I love that at each one of them I get a chance to be a friend to people, learn new things, and hopefully minister. The challenge is that I don’t truly have the ability to travel that much. Every one of those opportunities comes at a cost, doesn’t it? And sometimes the cost has nothing to do with money… it has to do with the time away from family.

    I’m not the only person in the world with more opportunities than time. How do you balance it all? 

  • Simply Youth Ministry is Getting It

    I consider the folks over at Simply to be my friends. I will admit that when I first started to get to know them they were a bit intimidating. But they are great folks that any youth worker should get to know.

    They are a couple of year’s into a competition with Youth Specialties for convention dollars. YS has run the very popular National Youth Workers Convention for years and then Simply partnered with another publisher to create the National Youth Ministry Conference. Let me make a quick observation about Simply’s marketing efforts.

    YS has found an edge (in the Seth Godin kind of way), their conference goes after the arts and goes after social justice and those types of things. From a marketing standpoint that’s their angle and they are doing quite well with it. The Simply/Group folks have found a different edge as they try to catch up to YS. They are going to appeal to their audience with silly stuff and videos like the one below. They must have discovered that this is what their audience likes.

    When it comes to marketing, there are two initial things that have to be done before you can succeed.
    1. Define your audience, including what they like.
    2. Define your competition

    HT to Andy

    This post was edited on 2/27 to clarify what I was saying a little better. It could have been misinterpreted, and for that I’m sorry.