I dearly hope that YS will continue to bring in at least one more academic-type speaker for general sessions in future NYWC events, because Phyllis Tickle this morning was completely brilliant (and I don’t only say that because she’s a fellow Episcopalian.) She broke down the various boundary-breaking movements, including the current emerging church movement, and explained some of the historical events that led to them, and shared some predictions that have been made for what they’ll mean. Long story short (and make sure you bring the CD of her talk home with you) churches generally fall into four groups with different focus points. As people from one group discover they’re interested in another group’s focus, they start working within both of those communities until, the prediction runs, 50-60% of American Christians will be in a “swirl” in the middle of the graph, drawing a vital and dynamic Christianity from practices in all four groups.
It seems that every year at NYWC there’s a band that just doesn’t work, that doesn’t connect with the audience of youth ministers who are there to hear. This year it was Stephanie Smith. I’ve only heard one of her songs before (she admitted she’s new) and neither had anyone else in my row, so we didn’t jump around or run to the mosh pit when she started to play. And no one else did either! Generally, the bands that tend to fall flattest are party-pop kid bands who insist from the stage (as Hawk Nelson did a couple of years ago when they were it) that the kids in our youth groups are much cooler than we are and would love them. So if anyone from YS is reading, that’s my two cents on the band choices.
Today I discovered Ambrosia Cafe, (which has a limited time that they’ll serve actual meals on the weekends, so I was eating cookies and drinking coffee, a nice compromise). Since we all need a break from Starbucks, go to Ambrosia. It’s at the corner of 11th and K Streets!
On my way to Ambrosia, I ran into an interfaith peace march at the state Capitol building. Here’s a photo:
