Purpose-Driven Youth Ministries Conference - Day 3

Another packed day!

Starbuck’s for breakfast, Psalm 64:1,2 for my soul and an hour with our Savior to refresh my heart, soul & mind.

Off to the PDYM Conference for more training, networking and thinking. I’m beat tonight. Lots of thinking, considering & brainstorming about our ministry work in Slovakia.

Received several book recommendations from a variety of speakers today. Here they are:
        “The ”Be With“ Factor by Bo Boshers;
        ”Leading Without Power“ by Max Devries (or Duprix?);
        ”This Way to Youth Ministry“ by Duffy Robbins.

I was also blessed by Doug Fields and Simply Youth Ministry with a wonderful gift of $150 worth of software to take back to Slovakia for use with Big House Ministries. What a great ministry!

I also met youth-workers from Germany and Holland today, as well as Chris from the Bahamas. He helps run a family jewelry business and is struggling with whether or not to leave the business to go full-time in youth ministry in the Bahamas. Wow! What a challenge to face!

It was very affirming to hear Doug Fields teach/train on the principles of PDYM and recognize that I have much of the principles already in effect in our ministries. I also received some affirmation from Doug and other youth-workers regarding my desire to establish a network of trained volunteer youth-workers, not to mention the affirmation that I have received from our Lord.

I also connected with my niece Nikki and nephew Jeremy by phone and tomorrow we’re getting together for a short visit. It’ll be good to see them since it’s been almost 6 years since the last time I saw them.

As well, I had the privilege of meeting some other youth-workers and having dinner with them. Robby from Orlando, Corissa from Humble, Texas and Mike, from Austin, Texas. Mike is also getting ready to go full-time into youth ministry in July. It is so cool to see people transitioning from ”regular“ jobs into full-time ministry!

All in all it has been a very good week.

It’s late and I have an early meeting and long day ahead of me.

Hope to a-muse you later...

Purpose-Driven Youth Ministries Conference - Day 2

WOW!

How do I summarize this day?

We were privileged to hear from Doug Fields again. But we were also blessed with the appearances of Lee Strobel (author of many books like “The Case for Faith” and “The Case for Christ”), Becky Tirabassi and Jim Burns. What a line-up!

Here are some of my thoughts that came out of today. They are not necessarily directly related to any of the messages, but things that God is speaking to me about my life, family, and ministry. They’ll be brief, some maybe even too much so. If you’d like to hear more, just write me and ask.

I was reminded how crucial incarnational ministry is as an approach. As well, I am reminded that we cannot forget to “factor in the ”unfactorable.” What I mean by that is what we have called for some time the “God-thing” factor. We plan an event, meeting or activity and, as it is under-girded by prayer, we trust God to do His “thing” in spite of our plans or along with our plans or whatever.

Team-building is another element that continues to be a foundational issue for healthy youth ministry.

Several ideas came to me as I listened and mused and sang and prayed. Here’s a short list of them:
1. Use our home in Slovakia for having Slovak youth-workers come to receive training, equipping, mentoring and encouragement.
2. Using index cards, make reminders for the senior guys in my small group to help them remember the purposes of the church.
3. Using a map of Banska Bystrica (our home city in Slovakia), have our ministry team mark where the junior & senior high schools and colleges are and mark how many students are in each.
4. Develop a training tool for use in Slovakia entitled, “Feeding The Soul of the Youth Worker.”
5. Develop a tool for helping youth-workers determine which one of the 5 purposes a youth-worker “bleeds” when “cut”.
6. Visit the following sites for various reasons:
        a. www.leestrobel.com
        b. www.homeword.com
        c. www.minusmedia.com

This has been a refreshing day. The high school band led worship tonight and it was very blessed. I was refreshed to step into the presence of the Lord with 1500 other youth-workers!

More musings later...

Purpose-Driven Youth Ministries Conference - Day 1

What a long day! Got up at 5:30am today to be able to say “goodbye” to Caleb before he left for school because I left at about 9:00am for Irvine, California, area for the Purpose-Driven Youth Ministries conference being held at Saddleback Community Church.

There are about 1500 of us youth-workers present at this conference. We’re meeting in the main church auditorium and still don’t fill it up! The evening started with registration and bbq’ed hot dogs, chips, cookies and drinks. I met Peter who is an Australian serving as a youth-worker in southern England at Locks Heath Free Church.

I also met Josh Griffin, who is the director of PDYM and he gave me the name of an individual whom I need to contact regarding the translation of the PDYM book into Slovak. He was very excited and hoped that we could work it all out.

Peter and I sat together at the opening meeting and met Ken, from Salt Lake City, Utah. Ken is a small groups pastor at his church and just about 1 month ago was given the youth ministry to oversee.

Doug Fields and his team put on a really nice evening. It started with a bunch of his youth group kids playing buckets, garbage cans, garbage can lids and more with drumsticks. Very good!

There was some drama, worship, a special appearance by a buddy of Doug’s (Keith somebody) who had pastored one of the fastest growing churches in S. Cal, had an affair and recovered and is still with his wife. Powerful story.

Doug shared some good stuff, from which I was reminded of how crucial the incarnational aspect of youth ministry really is. As well, I was reminded to add the “God-thing” element to my youth-worker training -- that’s where you do all that you can do and then ask God to do “His thing” in spite of and/or along with what we have prepared.

He closed with three words: Fill, Deny, Trust --
        1. We need to make a daily decision to be filled with God, His Holy Spirit. John 7: 37,38
        2. We need to make a daily denial of our selves. Mark 8:34 to which I add Rom. 12:1,2
        3. We need to make a daily decision to trust in God’s ways. Rom. 15:13

What a blessing and comforting feeling to be in the presence of 1500 other youth-workers who desire to walk with Jesus Christ and bring kids closer to Him as a result! It truly was a refreshing evening!

That’s it for today. I’m going to lay down in a bath tub of hot water and try to get rid of a headache that I’ve had for hours!