Summer Trips

Sorry it's been a while since the last time I posted. Things have been hectic this summer with me being a youth minister and all. I thought I would take a little time to write and talk about my summer trips.

This first picture is from Our trip to Colorado. Our friends Lacy and Jeff finally got married in Crested Butte (pronounced byoot, although I wish it were pronounced booty) the weekend before The American Baptist Convention National Youth Gathering in Estes Park. Thus we flew in early went to the wedding and then met our youth at the Conference. This picture is us riding the ski lift up to the top of the mountain where we then climbed a few miles to the top of the butte. 

Did I mention that there was snow on the top of the mountain and it was in the 60's. Notice the T-shirt and shorts. Here is the view from the top.

The Conference was also good. It was held at YMCA of the Rockies which is like no YMCA you have ever been to before. If this is the Y that the village people were singing about I finally understand why they liked it so much. Imagine a gigantic resort with everything you could ever want to do in the middle of beautiful mountains were you stay in really nice dorm rooms. Even the cafeteria style food was descent.

This is the group we took on the trip. At first I was upset because the group was small and quite a few people backed out at the last minute. However, once we got there I was extremely pleased with who we took because it was a group of our most committed youth and the trip would have been a real hassle if some of the kids who were discipline problems had come. This is because the conference was more geared to growing and discipling strong believers. 

I personally enjoyed many things about the trip. First, they had a great adult track for youth ministers and leaders that taught me many useful things about being a better youth minister. I have lots of training in music ministry, but youth ministry is something I have been learning as I go.  Second, the ABC is very multicultural and it was great to go to a conference with people from all over the nation and to chill with people from every race and background. Worship songs were sung in Spanish and English and it was good for our very Anglo kids to interact and develop relationships with people of different backgrounds. Some of the people were a little overboard though. Sometimes I think that the ABC tries so hard to be inclusive that it almost engages in reverse racism. I actually thought that in a few cases musicians and speakers may have been chosen as much for their race or background as for their ability. Here is a very funny example of how hard ABC churches try to be multicultural   

This is a churches logo on a bus with people holding hands around the cross. check out the turban on the stick figure on the right.

another great thing about the worship times during the conference  was their use of visual arts in worship. They had a graffiti artist who painted pictures during the services. Here are a couple of pieces I really liked.   

Speaking of trips, Trish also just got back from Russia. I'll get her to write a post about that trip on here soon.