CIY Believe dialogue...

It's been many years since my undergraduate education at Milligan. My time there was invaluable. Not just because of the education, but because of the friendships and worldview that I gained. I don't have any biological brothers... just a sister that I love to give a hard time to. But because of my time at Milligan, I gained several "brothers."

One of those is Nathan Gilmour.

He is seriously one of the smartest dudes that I know.

While most of us are still trying to figure out what we want to do with our lives and wondering if we will ever grow up, he was just named a Professor at Emmanuel College, in Georgia!! Seriously!!! I'm 32 years old and one of my best friends is a college professor!!! Wow!!!

We both have some serious experience in the world of youth ministry. As many of you know, who are faithful readers, I've been doing youth ministry fulltime as a career and a calling for nearly 10 years. Nathan, or Nate or Nate-dogg to me, has been doing it about as along as a volunteer. (Which may in many ways make his opinion worth more than mine... the outside opinion is usually the better one.)

Recently he attended a CIY Believe date in Georgia. And made some posts about his experience (HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE). I took issue with a few of his statements, in the sense of open dialogue and learning.

He posted my response HERE. Here's a snipet:
"I think a lot of what CIY does is try to grab their attention and hold it for long enough to share the message of the gospel, and I think they are trying to do it in a way that does a couple of things:
1. It ministers in a fresh way to kids who are Christians already (because don’t we all need a kick in the butt every once in a while when we get off track)
2. It opens the message up to those who have never heard it before.

In my group, for instance, two of my 18 were kids who had never been to church before. They came because their friends said, ‘You’ll like this… it will be fun.’ Now, have they gotten saved? Not yet… but who knows what seed has been planted in their hearts and minds?"

As I said, Nate is a smart, smart dude... way above my intellectual level. But we thought maybe we could have some open dialogue on some of the topics of students, church, worship, conferences and the such. This is NOT IN ANY WAY a "Nate is wrong and Jim is right" thing. This is an opportunity for dialogue, discussion and learning. Are there some things that youth ministry could do better at? Absolutely!! Let's talk about some of those things...

We welcome your input and participation.

Jim