You should see the glazed look that sweeps over some DREs and Youth Advisors faces when I approach them to ask if their congregation wants to run a con. Sometimes they get overwhelmed with excitement and possibility, sometimes they freeze while mentally calculating how they’ll possibly fit this into their schedule. It’s a BIG commitment! There are a lot of logistical details to care for. No matter if your congregation is full of con veterans or has never hosted a con before, it can be quite a daunting task.
A well run con appears as if it’s not “run” at all, but an organic, magic, seamless, creative event. You could go an entire weekend without thinking about how much hard work went into planning a con, and in fact, many youth and adults do. That’s why, at Youth Assembly/Annual Meeting in October, 2011 in Colorado Springs, many participants in the business meeting were shocked to hear that First Universalist Church of Denver felt overwhelmed at the prospect of hosting Bridging Con this April.
Admittedly, I was nervous going into that business meeting. First Universalist had proposed the idea of doing Bridging Con in clusters instead of district wide and the feedback I’d sought a few weeks before the meeting led me to believe I might be stepping into pretty hot water when I walked into the conference room to facilitate. However, I was humbly inspired by the intelligence, empathy and creative problem solving I witnessed that day. It was unanimously decided that bridging in clusters would not meet the needs of our youth. However, the group came up with a great alternative that incorporates the spirit of strengthening our clusters (the redesigning of our YAC team goes hand in hand with this).
District cons will be hosted by one church but the majority of the planning will be done by supporting congregations within the cluster. Each supporting congregation may take on aspects of planning, such as worships, workshops or food coordinating.
The First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, who is hosting the Western Cluster Retreat at the end of March, has fully implemented this model already. Each attending congregation will be presenting a video on the con’s theme, They are also partnering with neighboring congregation, South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society, for a community service project.
Foothills Unitarian Church of Fort Collins succeeded at an excellent experiment with food coordination at the Northern Cluster Retreat. For lunch, they asked congregants to bring in a large pot of soup, bread or salad for a community potluck and invited congregants to stay and eat with us. This was a great way to get the congregation involved in youth ministry and, had more people stayed to eat, we could have really showed them how awesome cons are. For dinner, Sue Sullivan, a Foothills congregant, facilitated a workshop on ethical eating. She even brought her friendly chickens in for show and tell! The workshop participants cooked pizza from scratch for everyone for dinner.
Creatively involving neighboring congregations in con planning is but one way YRUUers want to enhance con planning. In following posts I’ll tell you about increasing youth leadership trainings, ways to clear the communication channels and exercising our commitment to giving back by doing a stewardship project for the host church.
Posted Thursday, 12 January 2012 14:09 Written by Jennica Davis
