So I've been liveblogging the first two sessions of the Willow Creek student ministries Shift conference and they both have been pretty good. [I'm off of work for a while since resigning.] Here are some of the highlights and links.Session 1 - Culture - Darren Whitehead
: cultural freeze - when immigrants leave their home country and settle in a new country and then they recreate their culture in another country. Even though they had never gone back, their host culture has changed. The culture they had recreated in the US was frozen - 30 years of nonrelevance. Could this be what unchurched people feel like when they come to our churches?
: less leader generated to more user generated content in your student ministries - let the students create it and own it. [I feel like we do this pretty well - student led, leader guided]
: less imitation to more imagination - totally
2 - Evangelism - Donald Miller
[I don't even like putting that word on my blog.]
: when a culture becomes so insular that it only reacts with itself - it becomes goofy - it creates its own rules, goofy feeds on being insular
: After seeing a really good movie, many of us feel great and clear headed. I understand what life is now about, my positions, where I fit. We live in a culture where story is declining [Dan Pink's book again and John Eldredge _Waking the Dead_ writes about this a lot too.] Erosion of values has brought the erosion of story.
: Big part of evangelism - inviting people to a better story.
: Acts 17 - Paul doesn't care that they are making fun of him - he just stays - because he gets his real validation from God - I don't care what they think about me, I care about *them* - freedom to serve and reach out and relate - God has validated us - not about being validated by other humans
: Every story needs a redeemer.
Be sure to read the comments on the posts too - some pretty good interaction from other youth workers that are involved in either the virtual or the live conference.
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