I have been at a conference of The IASYM which is an International organization advancing the study of youth ministry. It’s participants fall into three categories. Some are professors of youth ministry (or related fields) at a college or seminary. Others are doing research in youth ministry related areas and most of those are PhD students. The rest of us are folks who are training, mentoring, coaching, supporting, etc other youth ministers. The conference allows me a chance to dialogue with others who do jobs very similar to mine and together we listen to the intellects presenting papers. Some of the papers are frankly not interesting to me but others are very relevant to our work in SC, the YAP, and more. For example, youth worship in Nigeria is a bit less relevant (though still interesting) than a Biblical Theology of Youth Ministry. What was fascinating about the conference is that ten years ago when I first attended it, I thought it was vaguely Christian. This year (and its not annual) it was almost dominated by evangelicals.
So, my next few posts will be about the things I heard at the conference. Some of it really had me thinking in ways I had not before. Stay tuned!!!
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