Home Again, Home Again...

It's been a little less than a week since I got back from GEM-K Conference and I am just now getting my head focused enough to write about it. Conference was amazing! It was so nice to catch up with old friends from last year and was even more fun to get to know all of the first timers to GEM-K Conference (this year we had over 10 first timers). This year was really neat because there wasn't a specific "team" that came over to run conference. We had a team, but not like last year when our team from OVCC went over to run it. This year there were two youth leaders from GEM (Cam and Tagg), four past GEM-Ks (Patty, John, Michael, and Kate), two people who love GEM-Ks (Liz and myself), Rod, and Matt and Hailey (and their kids). Being at Conference came so naturally this year because, 1) I had been there before and knew what to expect, and 2) I wasn't in charge of making sure the entire thing ran smoothly (by that I mean it wasn't all on our team's shoulders like last year, rather it was a total team effort and it was just natural).

So, the theme for Conference this year was taken from Chris Haw and Shane Claiborne's new book Jesus for President (sound familiar?) Matt was our speaker and he focused on a Mission theme: namely the Mission that God has for each of us and how it ties into God's Mission of bringing Shalom to the Earth. So our theme was Sheep... How does that work, you might ask. Well, in Matthew 10:16, Jesus says "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves" so... there you go. We are all sheep.

So, like I said, Matt was our speaker. In the mornings he would show a video and then we would break into our small groups and discuss the video. In the evenings Matt would speak in a sort of discussion format (similar to what we do in Community which is why I really enjoyed it). Every night he had the kids participate in section which he called "Agree:Disagree." How you play is simple: Matt throws out a statement and you walk to a side. You either agree or you disagree and then we discuss and argue each side. And you HAD to pick a side. There was no room for middle ground. All of the statements were set up in a way where you could come up with an argument to agree or disagree. I liked this part of Matt's talks because it made the kids (and myself) actually think about what they believe and why they believe it without being able to consult their parents or friends. They had to decide. Two statements that I remember most vividly were from the last night: "I have sinned if I bought a pair of shoes that were, unbeknown to me, made in a sweatshop." and "Everything we do is spiritual." Now, I have some strong opinions for these two, but I was surprised at the amount of kids which disagreed with my opinions. It was actually kinda sad.

All in all, conference was great! I love making connections with people, especially teens. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be able to attend and hang out with everyone (thanks again Matt!). It really was a wonderful time!

PS: the rest of my photos are posted on my Flickr. Have a look!