Over the 
Anzac day long weekend a bunch of youth and kids leaders from church headed up to YNET, a leadership conference in Mt Tamborine, Queensland. There was a pretty big crew, 17 in total, and we joined with heaps of other kids and youth leaders to sit under God’s word and think together about our ministries. Here’s a few things that I (Ritchie) ‘took home’ with me.
1. I’m often controlled by fear in my life and ministry. I’m afraid of losing relationships, my reputation and my comfortable life. I need to remember that I’m serving Jesus and his cause and that I can’t lose him and the life he has given.
2. Leaders pass on who they are, more than what they teach. We want youth leaders, church leaders and parents who are being shaped deeply by Christ and his gospel, because our young people will probably grow up to be like them (that is- like us)
3. Spending time away together is a super-duper way to build our unity as a youth leadership team. I loved the amateur jam session with our team on Saturday night, but discovered (once again) that I am an awful singer.
4. Relationships matter more than programs. We can have a great whiz-bang production with fully sick games, but what we really need is youth leaders who have a relationship with Jesus and work hard to invest in relationships with the youth.
For those of you who went along feel free to add your own ‘take-homes’ in the comments section.
we need to know why we do what we do…
so thinking about will ‘this’ help to make disciples who make disciples
so I guess I’m saying we need to know what our purpose is and to work toward that
Pastoring kids means saying to them “follow my example as I follow Christ’s”. Very challenging!