UK Update

i am having a fabulous time hanging out with my friends at soul survivor. soul survivor is held on the UK version of a fairgrounds and the exhibit hall is in a cattle barn. most delegates camp but i'm in a b & b, which is lovely and has fantastic breakfasts. my typical day has been: wake up, have a lovely breakfast (when i haven't hit the snooze & opted for toast), head over to the event site, hang out with friends, go to part of the morning session, get some lunch, help on the spring harvest exhibit til tea time. have tea, go to part of the evening service, back to the spring harvest exhibit, then back to the b & b for bed. so, this morning i'm missing the morning service to catch up a bit on email & blogging.

i realize this isn't loads of details, but here are a few random thoughts on my UK visit so far, in no particular order, some of which i'll unpack later & some are just here. if for some reason you, dear reader, have a wish for me to unpack a specific one, feel free to comment and i'll do my best.

• i think choosing a marriage partner might be as simple as saying, 'you are someone i can love, respect & who i have fun hanging out with and whose faults & foilbiles i can live with on most days without it driving me nuts.'
• hope is often hard, but worth it.
• the church at large is most likely failing to recognize in kids ages 8-11 the ability to begin understanding God at deeper levels. which in turn likely means we're not giving our young teens and teens enough respect and challenge in discipling them.
• and the previous thought leads to the thought that if in youth ministry (and this is a sweeping statement i realize), we were better at discipling our teens in a way that allowed them to feed themselves spiritually, we might be spending less time scratching our heads at how to keep 18-25 year olds in the church.
• how possible is it in current youth ministry models to use the training model of 'i do, you watch; we do it together; you do, i watch (& coach); you do for someone else'?
• in the UK, there is an event volunteer whose sole job is to sit amongst a huge stack of fire extinguishers with a radio, a phone & a megaphone, just in case a fire should break out. it's a UK safety requirement.
• it is possible to run a large scale event without a minute-by-minute for the plenary session, but it seems to require a production team with quick reflexes.
• people from the US speak American and people from the UK speak English and there is a difference.