Annual Conference Day One

What a spirit filled day! Annual Conference is off to an amazing start and leaves me with great hope for the future of United Methodist Church! Today had many great things but I would like to highlight the parts where I felt God was moving.

Day one of Annual Conference is always that day that starts things off gradually so today was quite a light day. However it was a great day for the Youth and Young Adult Ministries.

Dr. Gil Rendle – Conference Teacher

If you have never heard of Dr. Gil Rendle you are missing out on one of the greatest speakers and visionaries in the Christian movement today! He has an amazing way to say the simplest things that have huge ramifications. Here are some “tweets” that were shared today:

“When people go through the wilderness God changes them. He transforms them. #ctcac2012”

“We have to learn a new way of life as the UMC. We have to be open to wording the gospels in new generational languages. #ctcac2012”

“We have to cease to be a “member oriented” church. #ctcac2012”

A lot of what Dr. Gil Rendle taught us today surrounded around the idea that the Methodist Church has been working so hard to do things that have been proven don’t work. It reminds of the quote from Albert Einstein once said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.”

What resonated with me today was the last tweet that I mentioned above: “We have become a ‘member oriented’ church.”

The church was never something that was intended to have walls. Even though we have church buildings the church is something that goes beyond a building. We must realize that today! If we go to church on Sundays and praise God and then our lives don’t radically change we are radically missing the point. God desires to radically change the way we view things and its time that we started living that!

Center for Evangelism and Church Growth

Probably the biggest part of the day was the “Center for Evangelism and Church Growth,” which focused mainly on how to allow our churches to be more successful and productive through Vital Signs and The Healthy Church Initiative. What is most promising to me is that the United Methodist Church is trying to provide help not just for the big churches but also specialized resources and help for the smaller churches as well.

Youth and Young Adult Ministries

I had the extreme honor and was incredibly humbled by being interviewed by the Conference for a video that was about being more connectional and helpful to our youth leaders but also for our youth. This video was shown during this time, and I have to say that I was incredibly humbled to be featured in this way. During this report our CCYM President, Kevin Gregory also gave the “Student Leadership Address.” Kevin did an amazing job forming what the Student Leaders on the Conference level were all about and this was actually the part of the day where I felt God moving through Kevin. He worded that we, as the Conference Council of Youth Ministries are in the business of “Changing Hearts.” It was like a breath of fresh air to hear a youth in the church speak with such passion about his faith and desire to serve God and God alone for the transformation of the world.

Needless to say there is much HOPE!

There will be many other things to share with you throughout this week, but for now I am a Youth Minister that is very proud to be doing what I do, working alongside some of the best ministers I know, our youth.

May God bless you all in and around the Central Texas Conference by this update and remember you can follow all the action on Twitter by searching for the hashtag: “ctcac2012.”

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