Thursday at NYWC

Thursday was a fun day at the YS National Youth Worker’s Convention in Sacramento. I met my youth worker buddy Brandon before and we drove there together. At the convention we immediately saw some youth ministry friends: Tic Long, Les Christie, Jim Burns, Walt Muellar, Kara Powell, Wayne Rice, Cliff Carey from Hume Lake, Ryan and Trevor from Paradise… a bunch of folks.

Brandon and I got a chance to sit down and talk with Marko about Youth Ministry 3.0 as well. If you haven’t heard the buzz, Youth Ministry 3.0 is Marko’s new book talking about a much needed change in youth ministry. Brandon and I got to read the transcript a few days ago and we chatted with him about it. It’s hot off the press for this convention and will be available through YS in a few weeks (although the YS site says February… not sure why).

We’ll be doing a podcast with Marko on the subject soon to let you in on the discussion. Fascinating stuff. I really like how Marko is stretching us to think. I’m still be stretched by it all.

The actual sessions and seminars start tomorrow. I don’t teach until Sunday (whew!), so I’m spending time mingling with youth workers and chilling with Brandon.

Side note about Brandon– you can all pray for him right now. Brandon’s church has been having financial trouble lately and had to cut costs… so they cut the most productive ministry they had- youth ministry. So Brandon has been “unemployed” now for a week. He’s looking for a youth ministry job… he’s got several Sacramento churches looking at him. Whoever snags him will be lucky to get him. Brandon is an amazing guy. God’s really done some amazing work in his life.

I’ll continue to blog throughout the convention.