I thought I would give a short recap of my time spent at the National Youth Workers Convention (NYWC) in Cincinnati, Ohio over much of the last week. The NYWC is an annual event put on by Youth Specialties, who specialize in all things Youth Ministry. They do everything from article (blog) writing, to curriculum, fun and games and they are also the designers of YouthWorks, the mission trip organizers that took us to Niagara Falls two years ago.
The conference was packed with people from all over the country, as far away as Florida, California, Maine, New York and also Canada. There were volunteers in Youth Ministry, part-time Youth-Workers, full-time Youth pastors and everything in between. There were those who had worked in Youth Ministry for 2 months, all the way up to 50 (yes, 50) years! It's hard to say how many people were there, but it had to be close to 3,000 by my best estimate.
Each day would feature "big room" events where the whole conference would come together to hear speakers and preachers alike give talks on topics that are important to those who work in Youth Ministry. These sessions would often feature music from a DJ to a house band to Rend Collective, an international touring Christian Band from Ireland. In the big rooms, we heard topics such as missions, school volunteering opportunities, world hunger fasting events and so much more.
In between the "Big Room" events, there were one and a half hour sessions on a range of specialized topics. They were hard to choose between because so many of them sounded interesting. They were categorized by focus, such as Youth Worker self-care, managing personalities, fun and games, mission focused and so on. I went to as many sessions as I could fit in to the four days, and I learned a lot. Many of the things I heard reinforced ideas I'd already had, which made me feel like I might actually be doing something right in my job. Others introduced new concepts to me, or made me think about my ministry in a whole new way. This reminds me that I still have a long way to go, to grow, even, and that I'll never be perfect, but I can always learn to do better.
The topic that struck me the most was one on doubt. There was a great presenter who talked about how faith-based doubt exists in all levels, and about how it's changed over the years. He posited that doubt in the 19th century might sound like someone saying "God's favor does not shine upon me" or "God doesn't care about me." And, doubt in today's world might mean saying "There is no God." We face a tougher challenge than many of our ancestors because they grew up in a world where everyone (publicly) believed. He also talked about how Jr. High is the absolute hardest time to struggle with these feelings. This was especially poignant for me, as this was my time of greatest struggle, when I really pulled away from the church and questioned everything I'd ever been taught. The most important point I took away from this session was that we should not shy away from talking about our beliefs and our dis-beliefs. To doubt, to question is one of the strongest ways to grow in ones faith. It can certainly be a scary thing to talk about, and it's hard to imagine doing it in a church setting, but that's why it's so important. We can't ignore the hard questions, and we can't send young people away for asking. We are in a journey together. Faith is not a test with right and wrong answers, what we believe tomorrow might not be what we believe today.
I was able to learn so much in such a short amount of time, and I'm very excited to get back and be on this journey again with the young people of St. Mark's.
Thanks for reading!
Have a blessed day,
Rob
