This years Perkins School of Youth Ministry (PSYM) was a lot of fun and a great time of bonding and learning with other youth workers from around the country that are a part of my united methodist denominational flavor. I thought I’d throw down my top 5 moments from the week.
1. Having My Own Quiet Room and Bed for a Week: Yes, I do love my wife (immensely) and my child (tremendously) but it was nice to have this uber quiet room and a freaking huge bed all to myself for a week. I cannot say that I slept more than every, but there weren’t any waking up my wife while I roll over or child screaming in the middle of the night. That, was/is nice.
2. Giving Andrew Root a Detailed Account of Bed Bugs: Random? Absolutely. For those close to me know, my wife runs her families business along with her dad, which is, a pest control company (All American Pest Control) in the Nashville area. She started a bed bug program within the company this year, which has become quite busy of late. Since she has been learning all about bed bugs the years leading up to setting off this program, I happen to have learned quite a bit about it & for some reason while having dinner with Andrew Root,
3. Alabama Winning the College Football National Championship! This was totally aside from PSYM except for the fact that I watched the game with a few other youth workers who were willing to sign contracts that they would not do any social media of my behavior before/during/after the game and they personally couldn’t hold anything against me said or behavioral. The game for most folks was a bore, I get that, but it was very nerve wracking for me as we never quite put it out of reach till the lone touchdown. It was a good time & maybe Kevin’s shoulder recovered from me smacking it constantly because he didn’t complain too much about it.Erin & Kevin the topic came up. So for some 15 minutes or so Andrew received a whole lot of information from me about bed bugs over lobster ravioli and calzone.
4. Leading My Weeklong Classes: I led two classes, one on tools to use within the web and my Surviving to Thriving class. I had all ladies in those classes, except for when Eric stopped in, which had a great vibe and we laughed a whole lot. I loved teaching my Youth Ministry in the Great Emergence as a short shop this year. It was the very last class of the week and I honestly didn’t think anyone would show, but we had almost 10 peeps which
5. Networking with Old & New Youth Friends: Last year was my first time at PSYM, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but it was like going to a training event in my back yard. Cody within minutes of me walking in the door brought me a dvi adapter I loaned him last year and we totally missed each other before we flew home. Lots of familiar faces to chat with and made a few new ones along the week. I enjoyed meeting a few folks who I hope to push to help other youth workers this year through some of the projects we have planned with the Youthworker Movement (our non-profit partnership).was full for that class and I might have been a bit loopy in my discretion at times. Still, a good time.
Not sure what the PSYM will want me to do next year, hope they want me back next year, but I’m hoping for at least few of these to be ongoing experiences (not sure I’ll get to scare Andrew about the bed bugs again, we’ll see about Bama and another national championship).
About Gavin Richardson
