WYA

This past weekend, I had the great honor of taking two girls to the NJ Winter Youth Assembly. By great honor, I mean I was the only one who was available and old enough. What an honor.

But seriously, this was a really interesting experience for me. I was never really a camper in any form or fashion when I was in junior and senior high. I went to a few Girl Scout camps/campouts, but I quit Girl Scouts in sixth grade. Then I went on a Confirmation retreat weekend, a congregational Confirmation retreat, a few youth weekends and the National Gathering. All of that over the course of 6 years, of course. I did the Confirmation stuff because I had to, and the youth gathering was a whole different animal. Me and 35,000 of my closest Lutheran friends. The Festival in Faith, though, was pretty close to this whole Winter Youth Assembly thing. I don't remember if it was a synodical or conference gathering, but I think I went every year that I was in high school, and I loved it. Still, it means that my view of retreats is a little skewed, since I only really had this one experience.

Then I moved to Texas, started dating Wes, and got talked into going to a few camps/retreats with him with hundreds of my closest Methodist friends. I could say that everything about those camps is different than the ones I went to in Ohio, but I would be exaggerating...a little. I don't know of any camps that are at the level of the ones in the Southwest Texas Conference. I hate to admit that the Methodists might have something on us, but...they do in this case. I've been completely spoiled by how well the camps are done down there, and so I now have this really awkward tension between the few camps I went to in Ohio and the few I went to in Texas. I don't think either gives me an accurate depiction of camp in general.

Anyway, with that massive amount of background, I went to this youth weekend not knowing what to expect. And some things bugged me beyond belief. I've never been to a retreat where everyone was okay with kids talking throughout the entire service. I'm aware that the atmosphere is not the same as in a congregation, but I think teaching the students how to be reverent is important. It seemed like some leaders cared about this and others didn't at all, so that really tainted my experience during some of the early worship services.

Then there was the Saturday night service, and everything got a lot better. People were attentive, prayerful, reverent, and paying attention. It was like the presence of the Eucharist completely changed their attitude. This carried over into the Sunday morning service, which I also loved. I haven't quite worked out how I feel about worship being more or less important depending on the context.

If I didn't know better, I would think that youth ministry was an easy job. The girls I took were wonderful, listened to me, let me know where they were, and asked permission to do whatever they were thinking of doing. The small group that I led was attentive, open to one another, profound, and really willing to dive into the texts with me. The whole weekend was just really uplifting, and I enjoyed it all--even not getting enough sleep.

Besides the great worship experience on Saturday, I think the biggest thing I took away from the weekend was that I still need to work on my leadership skills. When I was a squad leader my junior year in band, my leadership style was "yell, and yell more." By my senior year, when I was also the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, I learned that yelling doesn't necessarily work. Throughout the years since, I've really worked on being the kind of leader I've always admired: the one who has respect because she respects others. Yelling and anger don't benefit leadership, and I'm still trying to work on that. I'm in a much better place than I was 7 or 8 years ago, but I'm not there. Lots of prayer, contemplation, and hard work have gotten me to where I am today, and all I can do is keep working.