conference

Greetings from Pittsburgh. I'm at the National Youth Workers Convention for the next few days. This year things worked out so that I can attend both this (a convention run by a protestant publishing company) and a Catholic conference in a few weeks. I'd attended each conference twice in my time as a youth minister but this is the first time I'll have gone to both in one year. I'm a self proclaimed conference snob but am trying so hard this year to stop being critical and really just take it all in.

The conference is going well so far. Here are a few random thoughts:

- If I haven't felt completely led to prayer when some of the musicians are leading worship, I get distracted trying to identify the 10 styles of hand raising worship.

- I laughed a little bit this morning when the guy in the row behind us held a coffee cup in one hand and had his other raised in worship as he sang. He seemed to be having a deep experience of prayer, apparently fueled by the Spirit and the Starbucks.

- It feels good to laugh so hard you cry. We saw 321 improv last night and they brought the funny as they always do. I had the chance to work with these guys at WorkCamp 2007 and saw them at our diocesan rally a few weeks ago. Carl represented well, he was wearing an old Rally shirt he bought for $1 at our rally. It was great to see them again and watch them work their improv genius. Their ministry is fantastic.

- The majority of the conference is protestant. So when a speaker says that, "the church is going in a new direction" or "the church really needs to be thinking about this," it confuses me. If it was a Catholic conference, that would make sense to me. But what does it mean to say this in regard to dozens of different denominations?

- When we were headed to Mass this morning (there are a few folks here from my diocese and we are having Mass each day), I heard a few people talking about General Session. One girl said, "There are a few speakers, and some music. It's like church." It just struck me how different people worship so differently.



That's it for right now. I'm headed to dinner with other folks from the diocese which is always a good time. We're making sure to get to Gen Session on time (which hasn't happened yet so far) since the Matt Maher Band is leading worship. They are so good at humbling themselves to point you to the Lord, I'm pretty sure I won't end up distractedly looking around for the different types of hand raising going on. I may even break out the "pound cake."