I really enjoyed being at Youthwork The Conference this weekend. The theme was ‘Transform’ – although sadly there were no giant robots!

As we’re only an hour or so down the road from Eastbourne, in previous years we’ve commuted across each day. This year however we booked a B&B which made a huge difference in our time and energy at the event. Regardless of our commute, it was the best Youthwork conference that I’ve been to. In particular, the programme was better organised with a good amount of sessions covering a range of appropriate topics without becoming too much or too busy. The main speakers were great too!

There were a few of us tweeting from the event providing a running commentary of some of the sessions. Check out the hashtag #ywc2009 on twitter to see what was going on!

The main highlights for me were Fuzz Kitto‘s sessions on ‘Youth Meet World’ and ‘Church Meet Youth’, Jim Wallis‘ first session on ‘Transforming The World: Jesus and big politics’, and Krish Kandiah and Cris Rogers workshop on The Bible: Passing on the Passion. I will try and post some highlights from those sessions at some point.

For me personally, I brought away a few things. I’ve been challenged about the idea of discipleship and mentoring again. We’re pretty good at running clubs and events, but need to make more of an effort with discipleship. As we have large numbers, we must build a better infrastructure to allow this to happen effectively.

Also, I’m determined to get myself back into reading the scriptures, and to learn how to understand and interpret them better. This is for my own benefit but also because part of my role is to teach the Bible to young people.

There was a general consensus that this was a great conference, so what did everyone else think about it?