NYWC Day 2 Recap

4 Ways to Have Great Production at your Events
by Student Life

One of the neat features of NYWC seems to be the small stages that are located in the middle of the exhibit area. On the Big Stuf stage this afternoon Student Life had a great presentation on production. While these are short 15 minute presentations do not get as in depth as a workshop but do have great info none the less.

1: Don't overshoot your capabilities. 
What are you capable of? If you are a small rural church, then the smoke machines and laser lights from events like NYWC are probably not something that your capable of. Take stock of what you have and find ways to implement that into a great strategy to pull off great production

2: Think outside the Sanctuary.
I'll change this to "Think outside the youth room". Good production should not be limited to your youth room. Some of the greatest programming has happened when a youth group was outside the youth room. Think about things like stations of the cross, prayer rooms. If your church has a huge hill near it think about going to that hill and having a series on the Sermon on the Mount.

3: Team work makes Dream work.
Even if your youth ministry is a small group, you still have a team. Think about the students in your youth ministry. Teenagers are some of the most creative people on the planet. Let them come along side you and contribute to their youth group. Some teens can pull off great graphic design on nothing more than their iPhone.

4: Go back to the Basics.
Great production doesn't have to be expensive. Snag a sale after Christmas at Lowes or Walmart on Christmas lights. Grab a ton of candles at the Dollar Tree. Troll Pintrest for cheap decorating and stage design elements.


Big Room 2:
by Tony Campolo

One thing I've learn going to conferences. Skip some stuff! I had every plan to attend Tony's big room session and I'm sure it was a great session BUT I honest went back to my room after lunch and just wanted to relax and unwind.

Best learning from this? Take some you time at a conference! Just because it's on the schedule doesn't mean you have to go! Take some you time, unwind, take some time to think things out and absorb what you've learned, think things out, take a nap, disconnect from technology and relax, find a youth minister you respect and take them out for coffee. But you don't have to do EVERYTHING at a conference!

Built to Last: Nurturing a Faith that Lives, Thrives, and Survives.
by Duffy Robbins

I love Duffy's stuff! Every time I've gone to a conference and also when I took course for my youth ministry certificate, I love Duffy's workshops. He is a great communicator and a great guy. In this workshop he addressed certain characteristics that youth ministries have who are fostering a long lasting faith in their students. Here are a few key things I picked up:

1: Some truths are so profound they cannot be taught from a distance.
The truth of Jesus is so profound that we cannot simply teach teenagers from the stage, we have to be incarnation and show them and live life with them.

2: Growth through the Spiritual Disciplines. 
Referencing Foster's book "Celebration of Discipline" (a great read by the way) Duffy pointed out certain spiritual disciplines that we should be encouraging teens to do to foster their faith growth. Prayer, Bible Study, and even Scripture Meditation.

Big Room 3:
by Chris Hill

Chris is hilarious! If you can ever get a chance to listen to him deliver the Word, do it! He has a natural knack weaving humor into his message. His message to us was, once we accepted the call and put our hand to the plow, Jesus calls us not to look back. When we accept God's call to be youth ministers, we are called not to look back or according to Jesus we are unfit for the kingdom.

Writing for Youth Ministry
by Terry Linhart and Ginny Olson

This class was awesome! Ginny and Terry provided a ton of practical information on how to get published, what a proposal looks like, we heard from the editor of Youth Worker Journal about what he looks for in a article. Great learnings.

Also myself and other bloggers in the room got to help give our insight into blogging for youth ministry. Which got me to thinking, I'm going to run a series of posts on my blog about getting started in youth ministry blogging, practical tips, how to be featured as a guest blogger on blogs, and how to take your blogging to the next level. I'm no expert, but that's not why I got started blogging, it was because I had something to say and a blog is an excellent place to start.

Also you will be seeing some guest blogs appear here as a few of the participants in the class were interested in posting here! I'm really excited about that!