However, I get that sense now. There seems to be a difference in this case though, because when Yac died Marko was already in place as President and kept the spirit and heartbeat of Yac’s dream for YS alive.

Now YS seems to be a ship with no captain. Zondervan, who bought YS back in 2007, has always been quite a bit more conservative then YS. I always wondered how that relationship would work out and it seems like we may be seeing that it really hasn’t. I had a friend say to me that it is like those cute little quirks that your fiancee has, but then when you get married you realize they annoy you. It appears like Zondervan has gotten annoyed with those quirks, which is the only reason why I see in them getting rid of the person who not only had the heart and soul of YS but was also it’s leader.

I think that this will be a huge win for Group and Simply Youth Ministry along with the SYM Conference. I think that a lot of people are going to jump to there products and to their conference, because they feel that YS is just not going to be the same.

However, I think that this could be a loss for youth workers. We will now no longer have that place where we can all gather together and be stretched in our think by the speakers. One of the hallmarks of NYWC is that we were able to hear from a broad spectrum of people and so it forced us out of our comfort zones and made us think. I just don’t see Zondervan continuing with that and I hope that I am wrong.

In the meantime I will be praying for Marko, and I agree with Len that “YSMarko now stands for You’re Special Marko”. Of course, Marko was always special. I look forward to what Marko does to bless youth workers in the future, even if it is just a return to blogging.

But I will miss his antics like this….

And this….

I am really looking forward to NYWC in 2010, because I am hoping that I will be able to meet up with more of my youth pastor friends from around the country and being in one location will help that. Plus, I really think that YS is on the forefront of something very big in the world of youth ministry.

His life story has really got me thinking about my life story and how I was raised as a Christian myself, along with the attitudes that I have developed as a result. As you can see from the picture I have posted here, which is a sticker from Jay’s church, it says that they are “sorry for being self-righteous judgmental bastards.” While that is pretty strong language I think there is a lot of truth to that statement, especially for me personally. As I have been really examining my walk with God and the way I live out my faith in the world around me I have realized that I have not been exactly living my life the way that Jesus would. I don’t believe that I have always shown people the grace and love that as a person who is a Christ follower should.

This recent Presidential election has really brought a lot of it once again to my attention and I realized how much of a jerk I had been towards people who thought different than me when it came to politics. But this post is about even more than just that.

I have been at the National Youth Workers Convention in Pittsburgh this weekend and have heard many compelling messages. One of the people that spoke was a gentleman named Andrew Marin, who is the mastermind behind The Marin Foundation that is “the very first organization that works to build a bridge between the religious and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) communities in a non-threatening, research and biblically oriented fashion.” Andrew challenged the youth workers here in Pittsburgh to really get out there and do what they can to reach out to gay teenagers and show them the love of God, and to be intentional about it instead of just waiting for it to happen. Unfortunately, the churches reaction to people in the gay and lesbian community has not been one of love and that has made the church one of the last places on earth that they want to visit, so being intentional and going to them is the only way for us to really show them the love of Christ.

The next speaker after Andy was Soong-Chan Rah, who spoke on the issue of race in the church, which sadly is still and issue that our Presidential election has showed to be something that is a problem. The whole reason why Soong-Chan Rah was invited to speak was because of a skit in one of the books that Youth Specialties published that had stereotyped Asian-Americans in a very bad way. You can read Marko’s apology for it here, but the most important thing that rose out of it was the dialogue that was started regarding racism in the church. We were challenged by Soong-Chan as to whether some of our beliefs were based on a cultural faith based in predominately white America or was it really based on the Bible.

If you want to hear either Andy or Soong-Chan’s messages you can get them here.

This journey that I have personally been on has been great. I think that taking steps back every so often and looking at your life in light of the life of Christ is such a valuable and important thing. I know for me it has caused me to open my eyes and reflect upon the way that I treat my neighbors and even the way I treat fellow Christ-followers. So as a Christian I am sorry that the way I have lived my life has not caused people to see Jesus in me. But I am going to do my best to make sure that changes from here on out.

Here is two of my favorites of Marko. (You can click on them to see the bigger version.

Marko showing off his colors for “The Game”. Too bad he chickened out and took the jersey off after they lost.

And Marko’s impersonation of the Kool Aid Man.

First let me say that the people at Youth Specialties did an absolutely amazing job. I had never been to a NYWC and I was blown away at how organized and well done the whole thing was put together. Very professional and total class act, but yet fun and festive.

Phyllis Tickle

On Saturday morning Phyllis Tickle spoke to us. I had never heard of this person at all and when Tic introduced her he called her Tickle Me Elmo and had also said she was 74 years old. My first thought was, “What? Who the heck is this.” By the end I was jumping to me feet to give her a standing ovation. Her talk was on of the most academic heady talks that I had ever been a part of since I was in Bible college. But in the end she wrapped it all up and gave each of us a prophetic word about how we were a part of one of the next great ages in church history. I could go into more details here but instead I want to direct you to a friend of mine’s blog post about it, just don’t call him veronica (LOL). You can find it here.

Louie Giglio

Louie Giglio is always a person who gives great talks and Saturday evening with him was not a disappointment at all. Louie shared with us a story of how he had the opportunity to connect with a girl who got saved at one of the Passion Conferences that he does. Unfortunately this girl ended up dying in a car crash, which then lead to an opportunity for Louie to connect with her mom and eventually her dad, who is an atheist. As Louie was setting up the story there was this anticipation that the dad was going to come out on stage and close the whole service, but Louie stopped in the middle and said that he could sense that and did not want us to think that. He said that every pastor always ends their talks with a great beautiful bow, but that is not always how life is and that is not how this story is going to end. He went onto say that this girl’s dad still does not believe in God, but they are continuing their conversation. And that to me is a great bow to end the story. Louie is building a relationship with this man and will hopefully one day be able to help this guy understand that their is a God and that God loves this man, so that this dad can see his daughter again in heaven.

Doug Fields

On Sunday morning we had the amazing opportunity to be lead into song with the David Crowder Band and let me tell you that it was an amazing experience. As it always is with Mr. Crowder and his cohorts.

Then Doug Fields got up to speak to us and Doug is another person that usually gives amazing talks. He talked about envy and he related it with the story of Joseph in the Bible. I have a lot of thoughts regarding this that I may or may not post here. There was some things during his talk that really struck a chord with me and got me thinking. And I am still processing much of those thoughts.

All of the talks were amazing and if you want to download the audio from them or even purchase the DVD from it you can do so here. I really recommend getting the DVD of Phyllis Tickles talk, because she wrote a lot of stuff on a white board that would be good to see. I plan on getting a copy of it myself.