We had a good trip this year. Problem-free travel, no major blow-ups between people, and we got 5 houses repainted.

We had a pretty good Sr. High mission trip to Toronto a few weeks ago. I ended up with about a 15-hour sleep deficit by the end of the week, and the 2-day drive each way was a bit taxing, but overall it was a good trip.

A more complete photo log of the trip can be found in the Photo Gallery.

Another school year of youth group activities has come to an end. Of course, we have events planned for the summer, but the weekly meetings are done until the Fall Kickoff on August 29th. It’s been a pretty good year, and since I’ll still see the Sr. Highers regularly this summer, I’m looking forward to a few weeks of not planning and holding meetings.

Here comes the summer…

Another batch of Sr. Highers is leaving the nest. We had a special breakfast for the graduates and their parents on Sunday, and gave them each a copy of “The Message” bible. It’s always sad to see them go, but there’s always a fun new batch of freshmen to fill the gap in the fall.

For the second year in a row, the Sr. High group delivered food and cleaned tables at Culver’s restaurant to raise money for our summer mission trip. We had a good turnout from Eastridge folks, which helped make it a fun evening of work and fellowship.

One of the great things about being a youth worker is that you get to be goofy, and allow teenagers to let their cool down and be goofy too. Before last night’s discussion about living selflessly, we played our version of air hocky, where teams have to move a ping-pong ball across the other team’s goal line by using only air.

The Sr. Highers met at The Mill – South (a coffee shop) for our discussion about vocation last night. It was fun to mix things up a bit and meet someplace other than the Sr. High room at church for a change.

It didn’t even occur to me to consider, as I ordered a large latte, that I’ve been avoiding caffeine for most the last couple of years. I was seriously wired all night – I only got a couple of hours of sleep. I’m still feeling a bit of buzz this afternoon. Next time I’ll (hopefully) know better.

Well, the 2004 Sr. High spring retreat has come and gone. This year’s theme was a return of our bi-annual Love, Sex, and Dating retreat. It was a compatively small group this time, but I think everyone had fun.

Well, it’s been a while since I blogged. I’ve been meaning to for the past week, but never managed to get around to it.

The National Youth Workers Convention was a blast. The critical concerns course on the Emerging Church was helpful, even though I have the book. It was especially interesting to see some color photos of some of the worship environments people have put together. I came away even more pumped up about getting an alternative worship gathering started at Eastridge (more on that in another post). I think some of the other EPC folks got a little bored during the 8 hours, but I also think they came away with a better understanding of what I’ve been going on about for most of the past few months.

The other seminar that I really connected with was “Using Ancient Spiritual Practices In Your Youth Group” led by Tony Jones. For me it served largely as a reminder that I need to re-establish some spiritual disciplines in my life. For a while at my old apartment I had a “prayer closet”, which was literally the closet in the guest bedroom, where I had set up a couple of candles and a place to kneel and read scripture and pray. So I’ve started setting up a “spiritual station” in the basement bedroom using my old desk. I’ve also ordered a prayer rope from Eastern Christian Supply, and I’m going to try using it in conjunction with the “Jesus Prayer”. Over the next few weeks I’m going to try some of the other spiritual practices mentioned in Tony’s book “Soul Shaper”. Maybe after the first of the year I’ll see about introducing some of the practices to some or all of the youth group.

I walked the Labyrinth that YS had set up, and it was OK, but not really earth-shattering. I think that was because:

• I wanted to finish it before the final general session
• the CD and/or player they gave me to use was skipping and repeating
• the electronic background music wasn’t really effective for me – I would have connected better with something more acoustic

Still, I think it has potential to be a powerful experience.

I also had some good times of worship at the general sessions, which I needed.

Overall, a very cool trip.