National Youth Workers Convention

I am now sitting in a seminar at the National Youth Worker’s Convention (NYWC.) I am going to blog about my sessions here (1) to let you know what is going on and (2) to process and think out loud to see what I am learning here and how it applies to the student ministry at FBC. So here we go:

Day 1

After a pleasantly uneventful drive down, I made it to Atlanta on time. (Thanks to my Garmin, I did get to try Firehouse Subs for the first time. I have always wanted to try the hook and ladder sub after hearing the commercial on the radio for the last 10 months. I would give it 5 stars. They even had cherry limeade. (To add a sidenote to my sidenote: I will be talking a lot about my food experiences during this blog. I love food and I love trying new things. So if you are not hungry or on a low carb diet (pastor) , please bear with me.) I ate at Firehouse in Cleveland, TN and my Garmin had me go down a two lane road for 25 miles. I did not get back on 75 until I was in Georgia. It was actually a nice break from the interstate and I missed all the Chattanooga traffic.) I had signed up for a pre-conference. I took Speaking to Teenagers: Thinking, Creating, and Delivering effective messages by Duffy Robbins. I read the book about two years ago, but at the time I was not talking to teenagers every week. So this class was a good refresher of what I had read earlier. This class met for two 3 hour sessions. I did three hours Thursday and three on Friday. The first night was good. It was about the thinking that goes on behind the message like understanding your audience and gaining trust so they will listen to what you have to say. So it was all about the audience and the speaker.

I am staying at the Omni Hotel which is in the CNN building which is in downtown Atlanta. (I watched Fox news in my room just to spite them.) I choose a perfect location. It is right across from the Georgia World Congress Center which is where the conference is being held. I can walk to all the conferences and leave my car in the parking garage. There is a food court in the lobby and I got to eat supper at Moe’s Southwest Grill. I had one where I lived in Virginia and I had missed my Billy Baroo which is basically chicken nachos.