What NYC (Nazarene Youth Conference) 2015 Was Missing

It has taken me a while to write this, obviously because it is now April of 2017 and NYC happened two whole years ago! Nevertheless I still believe this message is important to share with my friends, family, and the church in general.

I hope and pray that you are listening and I say that with the utmost sincerity and respect.

In the year of 2011, I thought I was going to be tagging along to NYC with my older sister. Only to find out that you had to be in the 9th grade or 15 to come to NYC. I didn't fit into either of those slots so I wasn't able to go. At first I was dashed, but then my Dad reminded me I would have my own turn to go to NYC in 2015. (Little did I know my younger brother would be tagging along, I'm just kidding, he's the best.)

When I finally got to NYC I was very excited. The first thing I was excited for was seeing old friends in the Missionary Kid district that I was apart of and also making new ones. The second thing I was most excited for was the speakers and the performers. I am a music junkie and a radio DJ, so concerts hold a special place in my heart. (The artists performing were Lecrae, Rend Collective, & For KING & COUNTRY) The fourth thing that I was definitely most excited for was to go to forums and get to speak and ask questions with the presenters. Dialogue with speakers is something I love.

From a young age I have enjoyed talking with ministers and speakers, I love to soak in their knowledge and occasionally challenge them on something they said. As a church history buff, talking Nazarene church history and theology is my favorite thing to do. General church history is also something I enjoy talking about.

But instead of forums and panel discussions speaking on varying topics I got short-changed with a little thing called The Experience. I hated it to put it bluntly. The experience felt contrived and unreal. Not only was it a pure manipulation of people's feelings; it was shallow. At one point in the experience we basically sat down at huge tables to do arts and crafts like 5 year-olds.

Like I said before, I came out of there feeling short-changed. Where is my insightful presentation on apologetics? Where was the discussion on holiness and why the church feels called to it? Where was my panel discussion on foreign missions? Where is the presentation on why what we believe in the Lord's Supper differs from that of Martin Luther and falls more in line with Ulrich Zwingli? Answer: It wasn't there.

After all the smoke and mirrors, the selfies of kids on the big screen, and the zorb-ball soccer faded into the background I suddenly realized NYC 2015 was a shallow experience.

Not only did we not have workshops, we had worship segments that felt short and no ethereal lighting can save that my friend! Plus, we sang popular songs instead of singing the hymns that give us identity as Nazarenes. There was no Holiness Unto The Lord, one of my personal favorite hymns of all time, no Victory In Jesus. Instead we got to repeat the Lord's Prayer over and over and over again! How cerebral! (That was meant to be sarcastic)

How can we expect our youth leaders to speak to youth groups about holiness and apologetics if we don't even do it at the event where we all gather together? No example has been set. This NYC experience felt watered down way too much!

General Assembly is approaching my friends. Is Petra coming to perform for the adults? I think not! I'm not trying to say concert performances are bad, but it felt like fun and games. No growth, no spiritual maturity at all. It was all baby's milk. Do you expect our youth to grow into strong Christians off of baby's milk?

Where's the meat? Somebody find the Arby's of Christianity and bring it to NYC 2019!!! I am begging you! We will slowly lose North America if we do not reach our tweens and teens with the message of holiness and Christ-likeness.

So adults, the ones who make the decisions, who plan the events. Please consider this when you plan NYC Pheonix 2019.

(DISCLAIMER: These are my own personal opinions on the NYC 2015 event. In no way do I represent a body of people or the participants in whole.)