National Youth Worker’s Convention – Part 3

I think I’ve discovered something, I’m not sure that I like conventions.

It’s not that I didn’t love a lot of the speakers, it’s not that I wasn’t encouraged greatly by many of them, it’s not that I didn’t learn a lot, and learn even more questions that will take a good amount of thinking and processing to get through. It’s none of those things; it was the raw exposure of the state of youth ministry in the American church today that was so painful.

I was overwhelmed in the ‘Exhibit Hall’. “Buy this book, and that one, and another. Come to this camp, we have the best activities of anyone around (one camp cost almost $300 per student for a weekend……for a weekend!!). Get an autograph from this artist, musician, speaker, he/she is a spiritual celebrity! Buy this music, sign up for this free drawing, look here… buy this… sign up for that…” At one point in time I looked at my brother-in-law who was there also and said, “I know this is a convention hall and not a temple, but I wonder if Jesus would turn over any of these tables?”

We found one speaker particularly helpful and Jess talked to him about our own youth ministry. He said he was familiar with our area and would love to visit us and be a resource! We later researched his fee for being a ‘resource’ and learned that he charges $3,000 per 2 hour seminar……………………..

I know, these are resources to make our ministries better, to help us connect with students more, to help our students connect with God. It was just hard to see that with all of the money flying around. (And just so you know that my hypocrisy knows no limits, I bought several books myself. You can ask me which ones if you like, maybe I can redeem myself to you…)

Particularly disheartening were all of the conversations of attending youth workers that you would over hear waiting in line for something or passing in a hall. “I want to get home to try this out…. I can’t wait to implement this strategy… I just bought this program for our students to help them witness better…”

The wonderful thing about all of this is God met Jess and I there anyway. Wonderfully so. He ministered to me, He told me He loved me and desired that I pursue Him more than anything else in the world, and He told me in a way that was as clear as I have ever heard Him. It was amazing.

I learned some very helpful things about relating to and helping hurting students, and was reminded in a powerful way that the best way I can help students move towards God is to follow the apostle Paul’s example, “Follow me, as I follow Christ.”

There were a few prophets in the crowd sharing the wisdom of the way of Christ, “Your greatest pursuit should be your own relationship with Christ, and then with your wife and your children. If you fail at those, then there has been no ministry at all, only work.” “The Kingdom of God will grow just fine without you; it is not resting on your shoulders. Pursue God to join His great movement!” “The pursuit of large attendance in your youth ministry is the enemy of deep youth ministry. Jesus often drew a large crowd, which He promptly drove away with a few choice phrases.” “Pursue God-sized dreams. In other words only pursue what God desires, not what you or anyone else think things should look like.”

And so it was good, and God was there, and He did speak. And He said, “Maybe if you slow down a bit, you will be able to hear Me more, and next time we won’t have to meet up at a conference.”

Sounds good.