Good morning everyone, or should I almost say, Good afternoon. As I write this entry to you from Starbucks I know that my fellow Calvinites are presently in worship. May you have a blessed time in Worship today.
Yesterday was another great, but long day. Lots to take in and digest in the days to come. I'll let you in on some of those elements as we move along in the blog. I'll be finishing this entry in the Vancouver airport, as there's a Technology Seminar I want to attend before our final main session. I need to be updated on some of this techy stuff that my youth are in to so I don't look so old when I ask for help with things....(as my son likes to tell me). : )
After my time blogging at McDonald's yesterday, I had a bit of time to kill before our main session. I went back upstairs to find my roomie still fast asleep. We seem to be on different time schedules, and I would have thought it would have been me doing all the sleeping in. Time changes can actually be a good thing for me at times. : )
After "freshening up" I went to the display booths and spent a good deal of time talking with Marcel about youth ministry issues and the like.
I found a speaker from yesterday I needed to touch base with on some things. These seminar speakers are amazing. They hang out, stick around and are there if you have questions.
I found a speaker from yesterday I needed to touch base with on some things. These seminar speakers are amazing. They hang out, stick around and are there if you have questions.
Our Third large session started at 10:15 am. It began with a dance group called "Refined/Undignified" A group of students from Regent College that use hip/hop dance to speak into the lives of young people. They were amazing to watch and I am looking forward to seeing them this evening for a more full length performance.
Hannah and Tori, you'd love this group.....and maybe should consider going to Regent College to be part of it.....???? :)
We were led once again in worship by Jon and his Band. A wonderful time of worship.
Our Main Speaker this time was Iona. The theme of her talk was that things don't always go as we plan them to go, and that God values those times in our lives. Things may not be going okay, but God is with us. What we remember is more important than what we know, because when trials hit our lives, it's the remembering that anchors us in Jesus, not always our knowledge. Interesting point which I hadn't thought of before.
After the session it was time for lunch. I wanted to try a place that served burritos, but it was closed, so it was back to the same restaurant as yesterday. Here's a picture of the inside. I had a really good spicy meat lasagna with Caesar salad. It was pouring outside, so I got a bit wet, but it was worth it.
Our afternoon sessions were going to be a bit different this year. Youth Specialties identified 6 burning issues they felt needed more dialogue on by we youth workers/leaders, so they set them up for us to attend.
I attended two. The first entitled "Elastic Morality." It comes from a book published a bit ago (I bought it) that outlines where our Christian youth and young adults are when it comes to issues of morality and the church. A really good seminar and the results of our discussions will be made public to us soon.
The one thing that struck me was the group that was surveyed. In this study it was 300 young adults who were camp counsellors at Muskoka Woods. They are considered strong Christians who have a sincere desire to serve God and serve in the church. Having said that, one of the results of this survey was to try to find out where these young adults are when it comes to 3 different camps that the surveyors wanted to highlight.
Camp A is the Black and White camp. Things like right and wrong are clearly defined in the Bible, etc.
Camp B suggests that things are more grey. Right and wrong is informed in the Bible's teachings, but not necessarily truth.
Camp C puts everything into moral relativism, in that what's right and wrong is a matter of personal opinion.
(It's a bit more complicated than that, but that would take me too long to tell you about).
The results of these young adults, active church members, are that there are 40 % in camp A, 40 % in camp B, and 20 % in camp C.
The interesting thing is that among church leaders it breaks down as 95 % in Camp A, 5 % in camp B and 0 % in Camp C.
Think about the implications of that for a while......
The second seminar was related to the first a little bit.
It was entitled:
"Disillusioned or Passionately engaged: Responding to the Rang of Responses of Young Adults who Grew Up in the church."
This workshop consisted of telling us about the results of a yet to be published survey from across Canada. A group of people, with the help of some heavy weight research groups, interviewed many youth and young adults about what has happened to them since attending church as a young child.
I can't go into all the details, except to say that I can't wait to get hold of the research and begin talking with Parents and others about it. It's fascinating, disheartening, and challenging all at the same time.
I'll have to wait until I get home Monday morning to finish off this Blog, so hopefully you'll check it out soon. Gotta board my plane..........
Hello again.
It's Thursday now. Life and work got in the way, so I'll do my best to finish this blog entry and move on to some others still pending.....
Back to this seminar, or group think tank. Some of the preliminary results of this Canadian survey are as follows:
We are experiencing a Hemorrhaging Faith amongst our young people and young adults. Of those who went to church as children, 39 % become sporadic, or non attenders when they transition from childhood to teenage years.
47 % of those who continue on will become sporadic or non attenders between the ages of 18 - 34.
There are certain things that drive young adults to the church, and certain things that prove to be barriers. Initial data suggests:
Barriers:
1. Invisible God
2. Contaminated Community
3. Restrictive Teaching and Beliefs
4. Disengaged Parents
Drivers:
1. Tangible God
2. Vibrant church Community
3. Empowering Teaching and Beliefs
4. Engaged Parents.
There are 4 typologies of those Children raised in the church.
1. Choir = 23 % Faith is authentic healthy, natural
2. Fence Sitters = 36 % They are unwilling to commit to anything
3. Public Square = 26 % They are familiar with church but don't trust it.
4. Spiritually Uprooted = 15 % Grew up in church but don't want anything to do with it any more.
In general, "Most young adults we [the surveyors] met are on a search - for real encounters, authentic communities and freedom to be themselves - and will abandon churches, if necessary, to find it.
An interesting summary that the church better take note of.
We were asked to write prayers down for our youth ministries and churches. We placed them on red and white foam squares. These squares were then collected and made into the Canadian Flag.
After digesting all this great information, it was time to digest some great food. At each conference I have one dinner at the hotel; Pamper myself a bit. I ate at the Hyatt lounge. A nice quiet place. I was seated at a window table and could watch the traffic, and everyone getting wet in the rain.
I was greeted by a very helpful waitress. She ran through all the great dishes of the place, and I chose the French Onion Soup....
...and B.C. Salmon. Delicious. I took some time to do some reading of a book and just relax and enjoy a quiet, delicious meal.
Our evening main session included Refined/Undignified once again, as well as Jon and Band. We then had Doug Fields share with us. He's an amazing speaker on youth ministry issues. I've used much of his leadership material in my years of youth ministry. He talked about church leaders needing to forget about making his/her own legacy, but serve those up and coming so they can be equipped to lead well.
After our main speaker it was time for late night activities. Refined/Undignified played a 1 hour set. They focused on the lies that we try to hide in our lives. It was amazing to watch and a great story line.
Then there was evening, and then there was morning. It's now Sunday AM and I took in an early workshop. 8:30 AM. It was on youth and the digital age. I think it was one of the best workshops on this topic I've ever experience. Matt didn't really talk a lot about the technology, but more of how it has affected our youth. Some interesting stuff I hope to share with parents of our youth and younger ones sometime soon.
The one thing that I really found funny was his observation about how communication has gone. It's sort of gone backwards.
You'd think that we would have begun with the Twitter...only 140 characters of text to communicate with.
THEN we would have been amazed that we could get longer text messages to each other......
We would have been ecstatic to then have someone invent email so we could send attachments and even longer messages to each other...
and finally, that invention of inventions...the telephone...we could actually pick up a phone and talk to one another and get instant responses.......
In reality, things have gone the reverse, and if you think about it, it's strange isn't it........ : )
After this seminar it was time for our last big main session. We started a bit late and I had to leave at noon to catch my plane. Starfield was the worship band this morning. They certainly were LOUD. I actually had to leave the room because the drums seemed to be manipulating my heart beat. While out in the hallway I filled in the CNYW survey form. My way of multitasking. : )
Eventually Starfield settled down and we had some really good worship time together.
Our speaker was John McAuley. He is president and CEO of Muskoka Woods. He began talking about some really good stuff in Revelation, but I had to leave, so I'm hoping to get a copy of his talk somehow.
I checked out of the hotel and then took the subway to the Sky Train. I ended up getting a seat at the front of the train, so I could see lots of great stuff. Here's one of the underground stations.
Ah, the light at the end of the tunnel.....
The rails we are travelling on.
Over a bridge....a bit scary for one who doesn't like heights.....really!
Rush hour traffic.... : )
This picture doesn't do the mountains justice. I could see that on some mountains nearby, they were making snow for the ski hills. Cool! No pun intended.
The airport runway straight ahead. I'd hate for a plane to miss it while I was on the train.
The Vancouver Airport.
My gate for boarding, but, hey, where's my plane. It's almost boarding time.....
Oh, there it is. I forgot that WestJet is a no nonsense carrier. They simply clean up after the passengers are off and reload. I only had a 1 hour flight to Calgary AB first.
A view from my window seat. Alberta.
Landing at Calgary. I love the way the wings of the plane come apart on landing. How does it all stay together.....
I had supper at the airport. A nice Italian fast food place. The sun was setting at 5 pm.
A nice airport overall.
My final flight to Ottawa took just under 4 hours. I organized more blog pics during that time from Fred's Concert...stay tuned for that blog to come soon.
I arrived home just before midnight and Joycegina and Chris came to pick me up....Chris driving of course.
So ends my convention experience. Lots to digest over the next weeks/months, but it's all good stuff.
I hope you enjoyed having an inside look into a Canadian Youth Workers Convention. Thank you Calvin for allowing me the opportunity to receive this sort of training.
Until next time........
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