Yesterday was a banner day for me. I came home late last night completely exhausted but also invigorated as well.
What happened?
#1 Andrew Marin comes to Harbor. All throughout the fall as I got to know Andy it became more and more clear that he needed to talk to our church staff. I was talking to Stephen about the Marin Foundation and I was talking to Andy about the bridging going on between cultures here and everyone was interested in getting together. So I was able to connect the two yesterday morning. It was awesome to have our local leaders so interested and desperate to learn how to move forward in a Christ honoring way. Andy was able to share his story as well as some strategies with the teams here. I can’t wait to see how this continues to blossom!
# 2 Oceanside Youth Workers Network. A new friend, Kevin, from the National Network of Youth Ministry invited me to come to a local network up in Oceanside. I am so glad I drove all the way up there for lunch. (about 45 minutes each way) Just to be with my people was greatly encouraging. I love praying with youth workers and hearing what they are up to. Of course, I was able to tell them about Planet Wisdom, YS One Day, and DCLA… but that was so secondary to hearing their successes, challenges, and prayer requests. It was one of those “with my people” lunches. Fortunately, I get to do the same thing up in Escondido next Wednesday.
#3 Working the booth at National Pastors Conference. About 3 in the afternoon I headed down to NPC to relieve Dave from the YS booth. I got to talk to a lot of senior leaders about their youth ministries and how YS can help keep them trained and encouraged. It was also a fun time to meet some people face-to-face, like Mark RIddle. One difference I noticed between NPC and NYWC is that NPC seems to be much more of a networking event than NYWC. Than again, it could just be that I’m noticing all of that a lot more now?
#4 Fun day for me with online publishing. I had a super tight schedule yesterday, before I left my house at 6:15 AM I saw that Todd Rhoades had mentioned one of my blog posts on Monday Morning Insight. I was like a school girl when I saw that, very exciting. Also, Patti published my latest article over at YMX called, “Is Justice Up to You?”
#5 Newsletter changes. Each week at work, I help produce and send out three newsletters for YS. Over the past few months we’ve been revamping two of them. Yesterday, we sent out the first major change as the YS Parent Newsletter became the Real World Parent Newsletter. I love that we’re now tying that into our brand spanking new parent seminars. I’m a big fan of “do stuff that makes sense” and this is one of those deals. I know a lot of parents of teenagers read my blog… so make sure you subscribe using this link.
On top of all of this there were a couple of other really exciting things for me. A friend handed me his book… I’ve been praying with him through the process and it was awesome to see it in print! And I’m working with an organization to tell the youth ministry world about something super cool. More on both of those things soon.
