Princeton Forum on Youth Ministry #iym12

Several months ago I signed up to spend a few days at the Princeton Forum on Youth Ministry in Santa Barbara, CA.  This is the 4th forum I have attended and I really enjoy the conversations and presentations.  This is a different type of Youth Ministry event for a couple of reasons.  First,  there are only about 70 people here.  I love the smallness of this event especially as it contrasts to the big events that I am normally a part of.  It feels that this size makes for a healthy committee.  We are at a church not a huge conference center so we are in a close space together all day.   Secondly, I really appreciate the way they bring in different sorts of speakers who don’t always have much Youth Ministry backgrounds. Last night we heard from Marianne Meye Thompson who is a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary.  I took a number of classes from her at Fuller and she’s incredibly intelligent and gifted. Listening to her gave me some flashbacks that weren’t always good as one class I took was so hard.  She did a great job unpacking the concept of creation which helped us think about our theology of who God is.  Thirdly, there is a great opportunity to be engaged with those who are teaching/speaking.  That takes down the curtain between how we engage with the knowledge.

If you are reading this blog and you don’t know anything about this conference you are in luck because it happens twice a year and the next one is going to be in Princeton, NJ April 23-26.  I’m not on staff for them nor are they paying me to write this so you can hear me say this with a complete honesty. If you have any money left in your budget to go to this in April I think it’s worth it.

I’ll be honest and say that there are parts of this event that push me a little. The worship times are different from what I would choose to engage with. But, with that said I was completely challenged yesterday to rethink my paradigm of what I think “worship” is for me.  There was one part of the service involving masks and pantomime/drama. It was great and really made me think.

I guess the last thing I should say is that it’s nice to be at a conference where I don’t have anything to do. I’m not teaching, leading or really doing anything besides learning, writing and interacting with others.  It’s especially cool for me that I’m actually here with three people from my new church and I’m just getting to know them.