The Good, the Bad, and Getting Ugly

So the BUMC Youth recently went to the Springmaid Spiritual Life Retreat. Overall it went really well. I broke 2 toes, earned a nasty bruise, and was tackled numerous times during football on the beach. The speaker was pretty good. He talked about surrendering your life over to God fully. No strings attached. The food, well it was cafeteria food. The rooms were nice. I slept on the floor. To be honest I liked it that way. One night Sam sat up screaming "Dad! Dad! Dad!" Which was followed up by Sean sitting up and nearly killing Sam. The funny part is that Sam has no recollection of any of this.

We had some beautiful shots of the sunrises as well.

On the bus ride a few of the youth helped to develop a list that they want to send to Xibit for "Pimp my Church Bus." It would be complete with:

Stained glass window tint
Air purification system (and odor neutralizer) <-- my idea

Hardwood floors

12 Xbox 360s

Full reclining seats

A 42" plasma tv mounted on the ceiling

Personal headsets

Ipod touches mounted into the seats

"Bible" holders that would really only be used for laptops

Rims with the Itchus in them

Black paint job

6" Lift Kit (to be closer to heaven)

A sunroof the length of the ceiling

Ten 12" subs (one for each commandment)

Bin for preheated blankets and pillows

Outlets at each seat

The actual list was nearly 3 pages handwritten. They also added a navigation system, a soundproof driving area, and a LCD monitor for backing up all for the driver.

Now for the rant. Yes, I'm going there. Yes, I hope people read it. Yes, there is a letter being sent to the conference office. The speaker we had was good, however, he was not the speaker advertised nor were we told why the scheduled speaker wasn't there. No one at the conference level had a clue what was going on when I called. They played "Crank That" at the dance. I realize my Wesleyan friends are gasping... I did too. Overall, it was very unorganized except for when the youth leaders had control of their groups during breakout sessions and free times. For the most part events were ran by youth. Now, this can work, but I don't remember seeing a youth pastor or for that matter a full time pastor ever taking the stage to direct the services.

All this brings me to this point:

I feel like youth ministry is being used as nothing more than a stepping stone to ordination. This is my holy discontent.

I've seen what great work the Wesleyan Church has done with youth ministry. Just look at Set Apart and the youth camps at Table Rock Wesleyan Camp. There are just over 50 Wesleyan Churches in South Carolina. There are 992 United Methodist Charges in South Carolina, and some of those charges contain two or three churches. Someone please explain to me why the SC Wesleyan Church is doing so much better than the UMCs in the area of youth ministry? I understand that this is not a competition between denominations, but lets look at the numbers. Which denomination values their youth? Which denomination is using their resources wisely? Which denomination seems to think that youth won't catch on that they are catching the short end of the stick?

I understand that from church to church the emphasis may differ, but as a whole we (UMC in SC) are doing a poor job. Salkehatchie is doing great, but it was not a conference idea. It was lay and clergy lead, and evolved to a great ministry. (If you haven't seen the salk video check it out).

To the SC Wesleyan District and the Wesleyan Church as a whole: Thank you for taking youth ministry seriously as a denomination. Please continue to work hard for the glory of God in this area.

To the SC Methodist Conference: Stop playing around. If we expect to see our denomination flourish instead of flounder we need to get in gear and move. If we continue to sit idle we can expect to see a decline in youth and a further decline in membership.

International Wesleyan Youth Convention

Impressive, extensive, incredible, moving, LOUD, fun, warm, focused, blessed... in the words of my good friend Chad Young, it was by far the most bestest Int'l Youth Convention you'll ever go to in your life... until next year.

So my fiance Kristie, Amanda, and I traveled down to Orlando to work at the youth convention between the Christmas and New Year holidays. I have to say, it was the best in between holidays week that I have experienced. First of all, it took us 11 hours to get to Orlando. This is because I decided to pick up I-20E in Columbia rather than following I-26 all the way to I-95. Why did I decide to tack on another hour of travel you ask? Because I did not follow my directions? Guilty as charged. At least I had good company. I was wondering why it took 6 hours to get out of South Carolina. For a moment I thought the state had annexed part of Georgia or something!

When we finally arrived that night this is what we pulled up to:



Here is a daytime picture:


Pretty awesome eh? And to those of you at BUMC reading this... Kristie and I stayed in separate rooms, and more importantly the Wesleyan Church picked up our tab... not you... so don't fret over the $475/night or the 9 Escalades parked out front.

The best part is that the convention was the worse part. Honestly, the convention itself was great! Over 7,000 youth gathered together from as far as New Zealand to join together under the common bond of Jesus Christ. It was wonderful to hear the voices of those youth singing praises in worship and to see their hands lifted up as lights ricocheted off of the crowd.

There were numerous bands and speakers. Kutless, Fireflight, Everyday Sunday, and Family Force 5 just to name a few. The worship leader was Steve Fee.

The final day was amazing! Kevin Myers spoke about "getting over it". How sometimes in life we just have to get over things. That sometimes there are things we have to do that we would not care to do. In the book of 1 Samuel, David isn't taken seriously at first. First when Samuel comes to anoint a new king, Jesse doesn't even recognize David as a candidate to become king. Then after the anointing, Jesse sends David to the front lines of the battle against the Philistines. However, Jesse sends David out with bread and cheese to take to his brothers and their commander. Jesse is a lowly pizza delivery boy. But because David got over his pride it showed that he was worthy to one day become king, and to face Goliath.

The music was incredible the last day. Both the worship music by Fee and the concert by Family Force 5 went great. It's a good thing too, because I blew a fuse in the Mazda that took out my radio. the road trip home seemed longer than usual with no radio. A special thanks to Fee and FF5 for getting a few songs stuck in my head... they helped on the trip home.

Two good increases in friendships took place. With Kristie sleeping like a rock in the passenger's seat it was just me and Amanda awake for the ride back to South Kakalaki. Luckily, Amanda did a wonderful job of keeping me awake by engaging me in conversation clear from St. Augustine to Charleston. Another surprise was with my roommate for the week, Kevin. I have to say that I knew Kevin and I would either do great together or we would both kill each other. I am pleased to say that all went well. To be honest, I couldn't have picked a better roommate.

All in all, the convention was not the only place that God reached out to me. He reached out to me in the hotel, in the car, at worship, at the convert, in break out sessions, and in the quiet times of that ride home.

I think that one of the best things about the conference was that among 7,000+ Wesleyans I was treated as a brother. No one looked at me as if I was from another denomination. I was treated as a fellow brother in Christ. This convention was about Christ, not denominational lines. I'm glad to see that the youth understand the big picture. I pray that adults, of all denominations, will see the same picture. 7,000+ Christians gathered in Orlando last week seeking after Christ. That is amazing. I have no doubt that 2008 will be as impressive as those 7,000 teens.