Wednesday Night Live.....from JK1

I almost forgot about the utter mayhem of the crowds at NAYC. Wow! You know, I love coming to events like Youth Congress because I get to see so many old friends. Likewise, I hate coming to events like Youth Congress because I see SO MANY old friends. It’s like a massive social overload. If you’ve ever been to Youth Congress, I’m sure you can relate. You struggle to greet every one you remotely know – amidst the thousands of overly eager people stampeding past you right and left, you try to innocently make your way through the crowd, and occasionally you run into someone you know – in that moment, you have, on average, about 3.5 seconds to catch up on each other’s past before being viciously mauled over by 2 dozen 13 year olds. It’s all good.

At any rate, let me report on Night One of Youth Congress 2005. Take my comments with a grain of salt……but I’m giving it to you straight up…..

Pre-Service: The energy was definitely there. It was loud. It was hyped. (However, not as much as I expected for the inaugural night…..there wasn’t that “Kapow!” factor). But that’s not what I want to comment on. I want to talk about the videography. I was very impressed with the quality of the videos – good job – they were cutting edge, hip, and impacting. But what was up with the Apostolic Youth Corp (AYC) video? It was almost scary. Plus, I don’t care for appeal tactics that guilt you into “doing” something for God. You may disagree, and if you do, please comment.

Music: I feel bad for all the musicians, choirs, and groups that sang. I’m sure they were all very talented. However, the sound system stunk. From where I sat, it all sounded like “mumbo, jumbo, mumbo, jumbo”.

On another note, I am curious as to why there isn’t more of a variety of music that is played at Youth Congress? Where is the more contemporary music? The rock? The modern hip-hop? Do all the young people in the UPC listen ONLY to gospel and southern blue-grass?

Service: The preaching was “on point” – Bro. Greg Glover presented a passionate charge to every young person to pick up the baton of generations before and believe for God to perform the unprecedented in the generation of today.

On another note, I’m sure I’m just unspiritual, but man, the service was long.

Arena: Nationwide Arena is very nice. There’s plenty of air and comfy seats.

Funny: The offering system was a little mixed up. I was sitting at the end of a row and somehow I ended up with a dozen offering buckets.

Positive Note: I have a couple of young people with me that are fresh out of the oven. They wanted to come to Youth Congress to see what all the hype was about. Upon entering the arena last night, I wasn’t sure how to read their reaction to all that was going on. But after Bro. Glover’s message, they entreated me to take them down to the ground level where others were praying. One of them looked at me and emphatically stated, “This is definitely worth $300!” (which is how much each young person had to raise to go on this trip).

PS: I took a gob of pictures yesterday of the arena, the services, and all the clamoring chaos and, lo and behold (Murphy’s Law), I brought the wrong adapter to download them to my computer. But do not fret, my friendly Blogazoid, I got another camera (and cord)….so I’ll be capturing the exciting action tonight and posting them probably tomorrow. Until then……peace out!