Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend Youth Specialties‘ The Core 2008: Generation Change with my pastor and two of my fellow youth volunteers at Camp Hill UMC.

Overall, the event was pretty decent, though I didn’t think it was as good as the previous week’s conference at Messiah College or a training held by Group a few years ago. My main gripe was that the training was more theoretical than practical, so instead of going home with lots of examples and ideas to try, I came home with lots of conversation starters for me and the other youth leaders. Conversation starters would be great if I had lots of time to invest in youth ministry, but I’m neither a full- nor part-time youth leader, so any time I do have comes after my 40+ hour a week job.

Would I recommend the conference to other youth leaders? Most definitely, as long as they understand going in that they’re not going to be talking with their staff on the ride home about all the great ideas they can put in place.