Sitting in a room with some great people working on a Youth Ministry Training module aimed at providing theological reflection and education for youth workers.
CYMT (Center for Youth Ministry Training) has organized this for the last three years and it's good. Hopefully after three years we have worked out the kinks and are putting things into place that will be useful for youth workers.
We've been kicking around how this looks for a while now and have finally landed with a model that might be most helpful.
I should probably state the place I start in all of this is that we don't do enough reflection time in the midst of training. I love the conferences I get to go to but I generally come home from most conference tired and with a bag of resources that ends up in a corner of my office for too long.
I'm wondering how many people feel the same way as I do.
1. Do you buy books and resources that you don't read?
2. Do you wish you had more time to reflect during or after a conference?
I'm hoping to hear from some of my youth ministry friends about what they think they, their volunteers and the youth ministry world as a whole need.
I’m all for more reflection (guided and focused) and intentional skills practice (with observation and feedback). I dig this stuff.
Losey- I figured youd say that. You are the master at all things guided and focused.
Personally (meaning, I realize that many others don’t need this) I look for an opportunity to meet with other long-term youth ministers. I need some evaluation/assessment of where where we are in ministry and how to enable/motivate my youth ministry team to do effective youth ministry. I look for “old-timers”.
I do end up piling my “conference loot” in a corner for too long, and I’d love some solid stuff that I’m going to dive in with right away (not necessarily curriculum – I have plenty of that).
Sam- Agreed. We need places to engage with each other and specific topics and ideas for longer chunks of time not 1.5 hour seminars with no time to reflect. Makes me rethink how to teach my seminars at NYWC this year. It also makes me wish more people were signing up for the cruise.