samgamgee

been hangin today and the next couple of days with dozen and half youth pastors and workers from around the north eastern part of ohio…even a few from PA are here. we’ve been invited into a interesting conversation around mark oestreicher, president of youth specialties new book – youth ministry 3.0. the first day has been mostly just getting to know each other. i’m wearing the tag for the oldest guy here and its interesting because i think i actually span the three different eras that marko has written about. i can remember attending a ys event just after coming to faith and picking up my first copy of the “ideas” books…of course now they’re on cd…but they were classic resources for doing student ministry back in the day.  so our first session was simply telling our stories and giving some context on how we got here.  then we tried to unpack a list of general ideas that we’d like to discuss.  and the finally we pushed through a great conversation about the positive aspects from what marko calls YM 1.0.  it was helpful.  duirng the conversation i was reminded many times about the good work the mike yaconelli did during his years at YS to stir the intellectual pot on what ministry needed to be.  many of us who are engaged in student ministry today truly owe our places to the heart and passion of “yac” as he was known.  its interesting that the conversation today was centered around many of the questions that he was pushing through during his lifetime…how to make the gospel relevant, contextually to young people.  here’s a great tribute to mike’s good work…  and the best part is he’s reminding those of us who do youth work…that we’re not doing our job if there isn’t a couple rules about your ministry at your church than you’re not doing your job…i.e. “no climbing in the organ pipes”.

btw, if you missed it, tim schmoyer hosted a great conversation with marko this past week.  you can find the podcast here.