Amazing.
That's basically the one word that continually comes to mind when I think of how to describe the adventure this past week. Everything was awesome. Here is my recap for those who wouldn't mind reading it. Right now I'm listening to Poor and Wretched "No Escape" (track 2) which I've fallen in love with. This one is going to turn into a "put-on-repeat-close-my-eyes-worship-God" song. Oh yeah, be aware that when I write…I'm detailed.
10.4.06 Wednesday night: the flight was fine despite the rain causing an hour long delay just sitting in the plane before take-off. Actually arriving in Austin, Texas was cool in itself because I've never been that far west.
10.5.06 Thursday afternoon: we ate lunch together at TGIFridays which is in the hotel. The conference center was just two blocks down from the Radisson hotel we stayed in. I was about ready to jump out of myself in excitement just walking into the place and seeing "Welcome to the National Youth Workers Convention 2006." My critical concerns course was "Leading Youth in Worship with Vicki Beeching". It didn't matter that I've never been to this convention before and had no idea what to expect from this 7 hour course, just the title of it was enough to make me love it already. I love worship. I love singing. I love it. :) Vicki has an awesome voice and I learned a lot of good things from that class. I talked to Leeland Moring (from the group Leeland) who is only 18 years old. He talked about the importance of prayer and a close walk with God if you want to succeed in anything in this life. And he told me that if I want to learn an instrument to put music to my lyrics and songs, I should play the bass first. It makes sense though, learning the basic numbers and chords for such a simple instrument, then work on chords on the guitar and piano. *sigh* how much I would love to really learn an instrument to get music to my songs…………so yeah, we had some prayer time near the end for whoever was struggling with their worship team at home. I raised my hand right away (sorri Refuge, I love you guys) just because I want to find the balance of leading God's way. I mentioned that I feel like I'm always losing because I don't speak up and then I hear that I need to speak up to be a leader and then I do speak up and things get taken the wrong way or I don't say things the right way and so then I hear that I'm not being fair and what not. So Vicki ended up praying for me personally and her prayer hit home in more ways than one about fear and God showing me that I was put in this position for a reason and I am right where God wants me to be and many other things. That was amazing because I have been thinking for the past many months that I was failing. Not saying I don't take into account how the worship band thinks I'm doing a great job, it's just hearing from someone who doesn't really know me pray that I would see I am right where God wants me to be is something different. And the part about fear…well those who know me know how great that unfortunately is in my life.
10.5.06 Thursday night: we walked around the YS store and I bought way too much stuff (who cares). Everything was on sale for the first night. So I grabbed a NYWC "Reveal" shirt (that's the conference theme, and a whole mess of music (no surprise there huh? lol) WOW 2007 music videos DVD, The Nail Vol. 3 DVD, Shawn McDonald "Ripen", Hip Hope Hits 2007, X2007, Jeremy Camp "Restored", KJ-52 "Remixed" (which I found out has an awesome version of "Are You Real?" with Jesse and Joseph from Falling Up as well as "Run for Cover" with Trevor from TFK), Falling Up "Exit Lights" (for those who know I said I wasn't going to buy this cd, the sale was '3 for $33' and yeah the originals are better but it's Falling Up music!), and Vicki Beeching "Yesterday, Today and Forever". After that we walked to the famous 'Bat Bridge' which has the world's largest bat colony living underneath it. At sunset we literally watched hundreds and hundreds of these small bats fly out from under this bridge. We took pictures and me, of course, paid more attention to the clouds above. lol. I love clouds. What a reflection of the beauty God has given us. Of course that's also seen through sunrises and sunsets and lightning and flowers, etc. Clouds are pretty amazing. Then we all went out to eat at a place called Houlihans which was pretty good. Myself, Ali, Carlos, Lynn, and Sonia went back to the conference center and watched about 20 minutes of the Worship Together concert with Vicki Beeching and Leeland. Then we went back to the hotel.
10.6.06 Friday morning: a continuation of my critical concerns course led to songwriting. I was in a group with four other guys and pretty much contributed to absolutely nothing of the song we wrote! How disappointing and depressing for myself, especially after telling myself that I would try my hardest to not be afraid of what other people think of me. So I left that class really angry with myself. Not cool. But the best part about that class was meeting new people. And these two people I would run into for the rest of the conference (hi Josh "from Kansas" and Steven "the guy with the mullet"! lol you guys are cool, thank you.) and I got Vicki to sign my cd.
10.6.06 Friday afternoon: General Session 1: worship with David Crowder Band. Very awesome! Speaker: Buster Soaries. He was good. Special Guests: Jared Hall. He was really good, cool illusions. And Hawk Nelson. Yeahhhhh. Everyone else went to the YS Store, but I stayed and stood in the front to watch them and sing. Very cool. After that mini concert, I went and bought their cd "Smile, It's the End of the World". (ha, I like that title). Then I went to a seminar called "Do More of What You Love: Life Management for Youth Workers". I stayed for a half hour and then left because the class was more for people who are running late all the time and don't like to make lists. (I love lists. ha). So I jumped into "How MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, and iPods are Changing All the Rules in High School Ministry". After a half hour of that I left because I use MySpace and I have a Xanga account and it was basically for people who didn't know much about it and how we learn more about the youth of our church by reading their blogs. So with a half hour left of seminar time, I walked around the Exhibit Hall getting a few free t-shirts and ran into Josh and Steven at the VChurches booth.
10.6.06 Friday night: General Session 2: worship with David Crowder Band. Very awesome again. Ended up going behind the black curtain with Romulo to talk to Crowder and took a picture of him and Romulo together before we were told "you can't be back here." Speaker: Mike Pilavachi. He was awesome! Special Guests: Mike Lewis the Jesus Painter. It was incredible watching how he painted and how quickly he created the art he did. Kendall Payne sang, it was cool seeing how much she changed since her first cd, her hair is so long from that boycut she had. The Horn Guy came out and did an amazing show with the horns he had attached on his jumpsuit. There had to be at least 30 on there. It was cool. After that we had dinner and then came the Late Night Options. I went to the Flicker/Essential Rock Night Concert with Fireflight, Nevertheless, and Red. Carly and Romulo came too because Carly wanted to see Red. Everyone else went to see Jared Hall's illusions. Let me tell you…the concert was awesome! I've never heard Nevertheless and they were great! And then came Fireflight. You guys know I love Fireflight. I was right in front of the little stage and singing my heart out to the songs. They only did 4 which stinks, but still it was soooooooooo cool! And then they went to the merch booths in the back. Carly and Romulo went to watch Red and I went back and bought Nevertheless cd and they signed it and I got a picture with them, then I bought a Fireflight poster and they signed it and I got a picture with them. Red was still performing so I was kinda standing around doing nothing and noticed a guy sitting by himself at a table. So pushing myself to meet new people I went and sat with him and we talked and I found out his name was Kevin and he was part of a rock worship band called Poor and Wretched and they were performing tomorrow at the place we ate for lunch called Stubb's. It was really cool talking with him and the rest of the guys came over and then Carly and Romulo came to the table and we left for the hotel. They told us to come to Stubb's tomorrow and if they saw us, they would shout out hey to our Bridge New Jersey friends.
10.7.06 Saturday morning: I slept through the seminar.
10.7.06 Saturday mid-morning: General Session 3. Worship – David Crowder Band again. Speaker: Roland Martinson. He was okay. Special Guests: Thor Ramsey. Funny guy. Ceili Rain performed. They are a bluegrass band I guess? Complete with accordions and what not. Personally, they played too long. The Skit Guys. They are funny and awesome.
10.7.06 Saturday afternoon. Me, Ali, and Sonia were scheduled for the Labyrinth, but we all went to Stubb's BBQ to eat since it was "Youth Worker's Eat-For-Free" Day. But there were so many people that we went inside to pay and eat. The Indie Community artists were there including Poor and Wretched so I went to the balcony and watched the end of their performance. I went to their table and sayd "hey! We came." And the lead singer Wes sayd "hey yeah I saw you!" and Kevin sayd I should have yelled something while they were on stage. I bought their cd (which I'm listening to now. Still loving "No Escape" and now "Renewed" as well), they signed it and I got a picture with them. Back at the convention center, I went to Seminar: "Emerging Worship: Designing Worship Gatherings That Move Beyond Preaching and Singing". It was fairly basic and since I've been doing worship stations at The Sanctuary for over a year, I was bored. I did get some ideas for different stations by walking around and taking pictures of the ones they had up.
10.7.06 Saturday night. General Session 4. Worship – Shane and Shane. Great harmony. Speaker: Donald Miller (he wrote Blue Like Jazz). Special Guests: Ron Pearson. He was funny. Building 429 performed. I didn't hear them except while walking to Ballroom D since we wanted to get good seats for the Late Night Option which was a Comedy Club with Taylor Mason, Thor Ramsey, and Ron Pearson. They were all funny, but the best was with Taylor Mason and his puppets. Paco the Pig, Romeo, the sumo wrestler were the ones he used. Sarah was chosen to put her hand up the sumo guy's head and move the mouth on stage. And Carlos interacted with Romeo later on. It was hilarious. You had to be there. Afterwards he came to get Paco ("I'm watching the man" lol) and he talked to Carlos and asked where we were from and we sayd Elizabeth New Jersey and he sayd "awesome! I'm from Springfield" and that we should check out his MySpace and try to see if we can get together another time. Very cool. After that we went walked down a crazy and chaotic 6th Street and then back to the hotel to make the Sanctuary videoblog and then sleep.
10.8.06 Sunday morning. Seminar: "Understanding Hip Hop and Its Effect on Youth Culture". I stayed for 15 minutes. Why? Because Lynn and Danika were there so I decided to get notes from them and head on over to the Prayer Chapel. Let me tell you, it was awesome. The stations were great, especially one and I have a separate blog about that. It's called "Lean Forward". It was from the Pictures-Tell-a-Story station and they had all the pictures up on a wall. I was drawn to one in particular and wrote what felt like a Rob Bell anecdote. Check out my other blog.
10.8.06 Sunday mid-morning. General Session 5. Worship – Shane and Shane. Speaker: Sharon Cohn. She was great! 'Seek Justice'. Special Guests: The Skit Guys. Hilarious as always. Jars of Clay. Awesome. Eric Timm. Amazing. This guy has an amazing gift of art and painting. I have the progression of the painting he did during worship. The end result is amazing. I want a few of his paintings for my house (when I get one). Me and Ali walked around the Exhibition Hall again, walked through the 1Life Experience (I was Olivia), and got lunch and then I bought a Thousand Foot Krutch cd "The Art of Breaking" and got them to sign it and took a picture with them.
10.8.06 Sunday afternoon. Me and Ali did the labyrinth. It was okay. I liked going through it. I didn't like the fact that the stations were only set up to hold 2 people and if you took too long at a station, other people were waiting like a traffic jam. And knowing people are waiting for you to finish makes you feel like you need to hurry up. One guy had an emotional breakdown at the Hurt station so things got kinda backed up. I liked the Prayer Chapel a whole lot better. Plus I realized that doing worship stations for the Sanctuary has made it hard for me to actually go through the stations myself. I kept getting distracted with what I could take home rather than what I was able to get out of it.
10.8.06 Sunday mid-afternoon. General Session 6. Worship – Jeremy Camp. Great, learned a new song from his new album coming out October 31st…We just want to touch Your heart, Lord. Speaker: Greg Stier. Awesome! He was the best speaker out of the whole conference! "It's worth it." Special Guests: Bob Stromberg. He was great, awesome shadow images.
10.8.06 Sunday night. We went to P.F. Chang's for dinner. They had awesome cheesecake. Then we met together in the guy's room to go over our "nuggets" from the seminars and sessions. It was funny. Back in my room though we found out that Sonia is hilarious when she is tired!! Talking about how "rude" I was being (not literally) and my towel hanging over the television door and how she took out one contact lens and a whole bunch of other stuff. :)
10.9.06 Monday morning. Last day. Seminar: "Creating Sacred Spaces: A Practical Introduction to Experiential Worship." I thought this was also going to be boring because of the word 'introduction'. But she showed us lots of stations they have done and gave us a list of places we can find more worship station ideas and it was actually a good class.
10.9.06 Monday afternoon. General Session 7. Worship – Jeremy Camp. Speaker: Marko (Mark Oestreicher – president of Youth Specialties). He was great! Special Guest: Lost and Found. (I know, I thought of Michael and Siniscal's fellowship group too). Yeah…um, they were okay. I just didn't know you could sing "be not afraid" in so many different ways. Ah, it stinks it had to be over! It was amazing and I already can't wait to go next year! We took a group picture with Tic Long. (check out my MySpace pictures to see it).
10.9.06 Monday…the rest of it. We ate lunch at Houlihans again and then made our way to the airport. Flight departed on time. Ali watched Nooma videos while I read "The Rapture" (the most recent Left Behind book…which I finished today. lol). I tried to sleep but it never works in the uncomfortable middle seat.
10.10.06 Tuesday. It was so good to be off of work. ;) I wanted to work on music, but instead I went through my suitcase and my Youth Specialties stuff and listened to my new cd's before going to the Victorian Manor for my brother's graduation from Chubb Institute. All in all, it's been an amazing week.
Books: (bought) "Memory Makers" by Doug Fields and Duffy Robbins, "Everyday Object Lessons" by Helen Musick and Duffy Robbins, "Living A Life That Matters – Lessons from Solomon, the Man Who Tried Everything" by Mark Matlock (can't wait to read this one), "Conversations With Jesus" by Youth For Christ (Invert), "Sexy Girls – How Hot Is Too Hot?" by Hayley DiMarco, (free) "Losers Club – Lessons From the Least Likely Heroes of the Bible" by Jeff Kinley, and "Ministry Mutiny" by Greg Stier.
That's about it. If anyone reached the end, I applaud and thank you. :)
keep smiling.be love