In case you ever wondered what I really do all day, I thought I’d post a video of one of my workshops from our Seminary event we had in May. Like I’ve said before, it was packed, and I gave the exact same training session two times, talking about the need for youth ministry training.
The purpose of this year’s Youth Emphasis Week at the Mexican Baptist Theological Seminary was to create the awareness of the need to work with young people, to walk beside them in their problems, and to make an investment in their lives because God can turn those problems into opportunities for future ministry.
We used the format of a television program, turned the entire auditorium into a TV set, and we titled the program “Invertidos” (Inverted). There is a play on words in Spanish that uses the meanings invest and invert.
On the first day, we invited Huberto (our first YM graduate in Mexico and now youth ministry professor) to be the special guest, so along with all the usual TV show stuff, we asked him to talk about the problems that young people have, and we left it at that: The problems we go through cause our lives to be messed up.
Day 2 was the day for the homiletics class to preach, so the student who preached talked about Genesis 3, temptation and sin.
Day 3 was an open forum where we saw a case study of a girl and guy who grew up in the church, began sleeping together, and got married behind everyone’s back (but each of them still lived with their own parents). He went to the USA to work, but got involved with another girl, and now wants a divorce. We invited answers from the crowd about how to handle the situation. We left thinking that we didn’t really know how to handle the situation.
Day 4 finished up the week with a look at how God sees these trials in our lives. I spoke about our ability to only see the past and the present while God can see the future. I used 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 to talk about how God sees us not as who we are but how we can be. He sees the future and wants to use these problems that young people are going through now to comfort others in the future.
Overall, I think the week went well. It was great to see the YM students come together as a team and pull off a lot of creative elements. I’m proud of them and their effort. It was a lot of work, but it produced what we had hoped to produce.
Thanks for praying. When I get some time, I hope to post a recap video.
