The Altar is a contemplative Christian retreat designed for middle school, high school, and college aged students.

This year, Youthfront is partnering with Clapham Sect: Phase II, a community of student abolitionists. We anticipate God drawing us closer to Himself and into a lifelong journey of pursuing His justice.

We will join together as one body to seek after God and work towards the restoration of our broken world through learning about modern day slavery and engaging in the fight to end oppression.

For more about The Altar contact Jamie Roach at jroach@youthfront.com.

Be encouraged and challenged. Leave equipped for your journey with students!

Saturday, August 23, 2008
Youthfront Auditorium
4715 Rainbow Blvd., Shawnee Mission, KS 66205
8:30am-2:00pm

Break out sessions to include (but not limited to):

• Counseling Teens
• Re-culturing Evangelism
• Abiding for yourself and your ministry
• Middle School 101
• Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry
• Doing Justice
• Re-culturing Student Leadership

Schedule:
8:30am Registration
9:00-10:00 General Session
10:15-11:00 Break Out Session #1
11:00-11:45 Lunch Provided
12:00-12:45 Break Out Session #2
1:00-2:00 General Session

Registration: $15 per person
Contact Jamie Roach at 913.647.2410 for more information (email Jamie)

Yesterday I spent the morning over at Youthfront South (our HS camp) training our college staff (some of them pictured below) in the art of storytelling and facilitating conversations. Much of what I have come to understand about the art of storytelling has come from Mike and Caesar over at Echo The Story.

Originally we had Mike Novelli coming in to do the training but schedules got complicated as they tend to do and so we weren’t able to have him. I enjoyed doing the training but it would have been great to have Mike with us.

At Youthfront we are experimenting with and implementing the concepts that I am writing about in my upcoming book, Story, Signs and Sacred Rhythms at camp this year (and for years to come we hope). Actually, we are bringing the concepts into all that we are doing in our training of youth workers, at our ministry site in Mexico and in all of our other local ministry expressions here in Kansas City.

The book has been extremely fun to work on. I am nearly finished with it. The manuscript is due later in the summer so I am thinking about it and writing a bit almost every hour of the day.

The basic idea of the book is to resource those of us (paid youth workers, volunteers, teachers, coaches, parents, etc.) who are consistently creating environments of spiritual transformation with 1) an understanding of what constitutes healthy, valuable environments, 2) a framework or approach to spiritually guiding students within the environments that we create (using a process that begins with helping students engage with God’s story and ultimately ends with helping students develop behaviors and expressions that live out God’s intended ways) and 3) practical tools to help us “environmentalists” implement the proposed approach.

I look forward to interacting with you on the ideas and concepts in the book. I will be doing a seminar at each of the YS conventions this coming fall around many of the ideas in the book so maybe we can connect there to chat about it too…

I’ve been spending the bulk of today with some new friends from the Diocese of South Carolina. We are staying at a really cool retreat center outside of the Charleston, SC area called St. Christopher Camp and Conference Center.

I was invited down to share some of our training in hopes that we might be able to establish a partnership for years to come. I look forward to investing into the youth workers as I have found them to be particularly engaging and unbelievably open to new ideas and practices.

Dave Wright is the Youth Ministry Coordinator for the Diocese. He is from the Chicago area so we have that going for us. He formerly worked in the UK and over time there has been a few of his friends that have crossed the pond from London and the surrounding areas to contribute to the movement here. Some fascinating stuff. Over the past few years I have spoken to or trained a lot of youth worker networks. I confess, this one might just be the most closely knitted one I have bumped into yet. They seem to have the partnering/collaborative thing down. Of course I am in town only for a day and obviously don’t get much more than a snapshot. I have, however, been moved by their hospitality and generosity toward me and toward one another. Dave has built something very special here.

Today I spent the day training the youth workers out of our Enroute content and also some bits and pieces from some other stuff I have developed out of our Shaping a Missional Community and Shepherding in a Culture of Change modules.

It has been a great day. The weather has been great. The conversation in the training has been very enriching and the highlight of the day was sitting under some of Bishop Lawrence’s teaching and storytelling. I was also blessed as the group prayed over me requesting safety and deeper levels of holiness in my travels and training. They also prayed for my son Luke who is soon to get his hearing aids. It was very encouraging.

Bishop Lawrence has just begun here in South Carolina as the new Bishop. I am not sure all of what it means to be a Bishop as I am not tremendously familiar with the Episcopal Church. The Bishop is a fantastic storyteller and a very well read and insightful communicator. I am looking forward to sitting under him again tonight in our final session.

Yesterday I spent the day in Denver, CO facilitating our Enroute Training. There were about 25 youth workers there representing about 8 different churches spread across 3 states. Several of the youth workers drove all the way from Custer, SD to be with us.

I always enjoy facilitating our Enroute Training but yesterday’s experience was especially cool because I got to hang with Dan Luebcke who is the pastor of student ministries as Southern Gables. I met Dan a few years ago at some training we hosted in Chicago. Since then we have been developing our friendship and it was a pleasure to continue that through partnering to host our training.

Dan has been at Southern Gables for 12 years. He actually grew up in that church as a kid and now is privileged to lead the youth ministry. Dan serves on the Student Ministries Council for the Evangelical Free Church denomination and has really helped (along with the entire SMC) shape a beautiful training partnership between Youthfront/Sonlife and the Ev. Free. We are excited to see the partnership unfold.

If you are from Denver and you missed the training yesterday, no worries… Dan is hosting us again this Fall.  Dan and a team of youth workers from the Denver area will also be hosting our new weekend event for students called Reveal.

I also had the chance to reconnect with Rich Van Pelt who has been a great friend to me since I first met him a couple of years ago at the Youth Ministry Executive Council meetings in Washington DC that the National Network of Youth Ministry hosts. Rich has been a breathe of fresh air for me as a long-time youth ministry veteran and expert who is longing for fresh, innovative approaches to youth work. He isn’t stuck. I love that about him. I also love what he does with Compassion International. Rich has given many years of his life to connecting people with resources and children in need around the world. Who doesn’t love that?

I am headed back to KC today for our Youth Worker Appreciation Dinner. The YWAD is an informal time for Youthfront to say thanks to the KC Metro youth workers for all they do to help shape the lives of teens. I am excited to experience this gathering for the first time.

Thursday night I was in Kansas City speaking at a church for my new friend Casey Kapple. Casey is the youth minister at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Overland Park, KS. Before his current position at Emmanuel, Casey was on staff at Youthfront for almost 4 years. It was great to get some input and feedback on some of Youthfront’s initiatives from someone who knows the organization well and is also a local youth worker.

I spoke to some of the parents of the teens in Casey’s ministry. I was encouraged by the parents’ strong commitment to helping their teens develop an authentic faith. I did some of the training from our Shepherding in a Culture of Change learning module. It was great fun and I was blessed to be a small part of Casey’s ministry, if even only for a night of training.

From Kansas City I flew to Ocean City, Md. What a beautiful place! I have never been to Ocean City but have had many friends who vacation there in the summer. The view (as seen below - not my pic) from my room was stunning - especially in the morning as the sun came up. Very cool…

I was speaking at a YFC event called Impact. There were about 4000ppl there from all over the east coast. I facilitated the youth worker training and had a few consulting appointments as well.

It was great to see Dave Rahn, as it always is. Dave was leading a seminar for students who want to explore God as well as reperesenting the national YFC office.

It was a pleasure to finally get the chance to meet Ruth Barton who I have wanted to meet for a long time. Ruth is the author of a couple of books (one called Sacred Rhythms in which my wife and her close friend Michelle are using these days as a “guide” of sorts for conversation, etc.). Ruth used to be at Willow a few years ago but now she is a spiritual director and retreat leader through the ministry she founded based in the Chicago area called, The Transforming Center.

I am thrilled to spend some time tonight with my good friend Dave Michener. Dave was the first one to hire me for a youth ministry job and continues to be a great friend and mentor to me and my family (Dave performed the wedding ceremony for Gina and me!).

Dave is the executive pastor at Bridgeway Community Church, a multi-cultural church outside of Baltimore in Columbia, MD. I always love talking with Dave about stuff going on at Bridgeway. Bridgeway is an innovative church that is in many ways leading the way forward for churches desiring to be intentionally multi-cultural.

Leave Baltimore early tomorrow morning and head home — can’t wait to see my family!

On Saturday we hosted about 230 youth workers and students at Youthfront in cooperation with Youth Specialties for their CORE Training. It was great to connect with so many like-minded people!

Dave Ambrose was the presenter. Dave did a very good job. His flight was delayed a couple of hours so we began a couple hours later than the anticipated 9AM start time. It was all good… The youth workers in attendance, as you would expect, were very cool about the delay making the most of it by being flexible as only youth workers can by connecting with others in meaningful conversation and participating in a Lectio Divina experience that one of our staff (Jamie Roach) led from the gospel of Luke. It was very cool.

(Me, Dave Ambrose, Rivers Partin, Jamie Roach, Mike King)

I had heard from a few that the CORE: Generation Change content wasn’t that great this year. I disagree. I didn’t sit in on all of the training but the training I was in on was very good. I think the content was meaningful, helpful and very effective. If you haven’t already taken your volunteers or student leaders and you are in a part of the country where they haven’t yet been, you should consider taking them.

I was pleased to see how closely aligned (thematically) the Generation Change content is with what we are doing with Enroute, our one-day training experience. I love that so many of us are thinking similarly and that the thinking is working itself out into training that inspires and equips volunteers and students toward an aligned passion and cry for change.