From Sunday
Canadian Youth Workers Conference – Day 4

I am sitting on the Ferry that takes you from Vancouver to Nanaimo. The youth workers conference is over. My brain hurts, overload. Actually there is lots of great preaching and teaching that I now have to pray and sort through. I was sitting in a seminar this morning about lasting in ministry. The speaker said one of the ways that we destroy our ministries is the sin of grandiose. He used the example of youth workers status icons. Like how many are in your group, who do know, what have you read and of course how many conferences do you get to go to.

In my pre-coffee fog I was horrified. Am I sending a message to our pastors and youth leaders that I am better than them, by reporting on the conference, that I am attending? I sure hope not, my purpose for sending details about the conference is to try to pass along some of the teaching that I am receiving.

I grant it privilege to work at District office, to read, attend conferences and dialogue with the leaders so that I can bring perspective and help to our pastors and leaders as they work so hard to build the church and impact their communities for Christ’s sake. If you read this blog and I want to bring you something of value, something that is life changing and helpful.

If I were to sum up the main themes that impacted me in this conference they are;

1. Read – anyone who leads needs to read. Study is imperative. Leaders are learners. We live in a world full of chaos and confusion and not only do we need to here from the Holy Spirit we need to do the academic work as well.
2. Rest – I wrote a little about the seminar on rest yesterday. It kept coming out in the seminars. These are champions of youth ministry, the ones with successful ministries and they are telling us to rest. My skeptical nature says they are telling us that so that they can work and get ahead while we are resting. But the more I thought about and prayed about it and heard about it, it made sense. Work hard but make sure that you rest regularly, even race cars come in for gas, tires and minor adjustments during the race. Actually with NASCAR part of the strategy at the end of the race is when to come in for new tires and how many do you put on. If you don’t put on any you car still race but your car gets slower and slower. If you come in for 2 new tires it makes the stop relatively short and you experience an improvement on traction and speed. If you come in for all 4 tires the stop takes longer but there is a huge improvement in traction and speed.
3. Embrace Restlessness – I know this seems to contradict what I just said. Welcome to my world. What I am talking about is that ministry is messy and God uses restlessness or dissatisfaction as a way to move us towards our next steps on the journey. If this wasn’t the case Pastoral ministry would only take a few hours a week. It is the tough situations that we face in our lives and the lives of the people in our congregations and communities that justify the importance we place on the call of God to ministry.

Hey I would love to know if anyone found the conference blog useful, or if anyone is out there. I have a bribe for you. For the first 5 pastors/youth leaders from the Manitoba Northwestern Ontario District of the PAOC, who comment back to me either negatively or positively I will send you a copy of the book, The Battle For Truth by David A Noebel.