I met Aaron, the Round-up Ranch Director from Adventure Unlimited, in Dallas to start our three-day Camp Show tour. We had a great turnout at all of the shows and lots of good questions were asked about life at the ranches. In Austin and Houston the DiscoveryBound chapters made use of this meeting opportunity. In Austin, they held a brainstorming session to plan out what the youth want to do for the rest of the year and in Houston the camp show was held at a climbing gym so everybody could go and get on the rock and play after the show.
From here, Aaron heads back to the Ranches for a few days before starting his West Coast road trip and camp show tour while I will be heading down to South Texas to help get a chapter going there.
The TAMU CSO held their third annual GAD - Gathering of Active Disciples. The theme this year was "The Desserts of Life" and a number of discussion sessions were held, some with theme related titles, around that topic: * How to break the ice - cream: Discussing CS with others * Whirled Peace: Praying for the world * Sin, baptism where do we fit in? * Recipe for a Sweet Life: Finding balance in life * Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n Roll: Removing Temptation * Being Perfect in a Material World: Evidence of a perfect you. * Having a Sweet Heart: A look at relationships * Life is Like a Box of Chocolates: Being grateful for the good already received
We also had Ryder Stevens, a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship give a talk on true Manhood and Womanhood. The title of his talk? Apple Pie: a la Mode
The weekend provided for an incredible opportunity to get ideas out and to gain inspiration on difficult topics. TMC Youth was there to do some filming so, look for an update on TMCYouth.com.
With about 140 in attendance, the Chicago Summit was again an inspirational time for the area youth to come together and enjoy the wonderful lectures and workshops. The full schedule can be seen at TMC Youth (as well as videos, a slideshow and recordings of some of the lectures).
Seventeenth Church right along the river in downtown Chicago provided space for the summit and the out of town guests were housed at Hosteling International Chicago just a mile down the road. That made for a nice stroll in the morning before the event.
I, however, did not do much sitting at all. As a volunteer, I arrived on Thursday afternoon to receive the rented AV equipment, start setting it up, and organize how the space was to be used. Friday, we were all back at the church to continue with the setup process and just as things were coming together, the first pre-registration participants started arriving at the hostel.
Saturday was filled with many great sessions, most in smaller groups, but at times the whole gang came together in the main auditorium. Lunch, snacks, dinner and dessert were provided as well as a rousing scavenger hunt that sent teams, broken up by age, racing throughout the church to chase down clues for the fabulous prize of Coldestone Creamery gift cards for the winning team. I believe it was the 12-17 year olds group that pulled off the win.
Sunday morning many of the participants gathered for Church and Sunday School, followed by small groups going out to get brunch. At 1.30pm a small meeting was held for adults (30 y/o+) who could not attend the event for a debrief complete with a slide show from the day before.
TMC Youth and the local planning committee did a great job and put on a great event. Bravo! Some photos
In short, the DiscoveryBound Leadership Conference was a smashing success. This was the biggest DiscoveryBound event ever with over 500 participants. Thanks to all who came and made it the best ever!
The National Leadership Council (NLC) played a huge role in the event this year. Now that the founding class of 2009 are mostly seniors (as opposed to being sophomores at this event two years ago) the NLC was able to take on more responsibility and even organized an amazing awareness dinner called the Oxfam Hunger Banquet. This brought to light the realities of how the world is divided economically. Most folks appreciated it and felt it was a very effective way to illustrate what was really going on out in the world. Some were put off by it, and rightfully so as most of us (myself included) only got a meager bowl of rice for dinner. One student was particularly irritated because she doesn't even like rice. I asked her what if she really lived in this situation and rice was the only option, ever. She conceded she'd probably learn to like rice and be grateful she had anything to eat at all.
The whole conference kicked off Saturday morning with a great lecture by Ryder Stevens on identity. The lecture was well received and Ryder provided some engaging stories that really stuck with people including one about the pig and the chicken... you'll have to find Ryder giving this lecture to get the rest.
Everyone then went to their sessions. Some were active, some based on discussions. Adults and youth had separate sessions. The adult sessions focused on being chapter workers and volunteers to support events in their local community and the youth sessions ranged from better understanding personal leadership roles, how to shine with the Christ love in sports, relationships, school, working situations and more.
Saturday before dinner the youth formed a huge circle and shared gratitude and highlights from the day before entering into the Oxfam Hunger Banquet.
Sunday morning started in the chapel with everybody for the responsive reading, a wonderful solo by one of the youth participants and a hymn. We all then filed out to the chapel green to collect into Sunday School classes. I had 15 year-olds and we had a good chat about the beatitudes - how being 'poor' in spirit means giving yourself 100% to God. We shared what part of our lives we could work on giving more of ourselves to God in - where we wanted to be humble and grow.
Sunday afternoon we all bussed down to the Principia Upper School Campus for a carnival, dance, slideshow and a very touching story told by Lona Ingwerson about letting our light shine. This was then illustrated by each of us holding an unlit candle and passing the flame around and seeing the glow of light grow brighter in the dark gym as we each let our light shine.
Monday morning everybody headed home and our DB Staff put the campus back to normal and we had a wonderful time going over the evaluations. Adults and youth alike shared how much they enjoyed the conference and many great suggestions were made so we can make the 2010 Leadership Conference even better!
We're always grateful for any feedback, constructive and complimentary, so if you think of something feel free to send it any time! info@discoverybound.org
My third musical in less than a month! I know die-hard musical folks do much more than this... but I did my three in seperate parts of the country! Lion King in NYC, Drowsy Chaperone in Dallas and Wicked in Chicago. Whew.
The Chicago Chapter did a great job organizing this event for over 80 people. Eight of us checked out the "Behind the Emerald Curtain" backstage tour of Wicked before about 50 of us gathered for dinner where Kim Korinek, CS gave us some nice thoughTs on the theme continued from the NYC event "Man is the expression of Soul" (SH 477).
I spoke briefly about the upcoming DB National Event at Principia College on Labor Day and Cody Cosmic on the Chicago TMC Youth Summit Board announced the Summit coming up in October.
Wicked is a great show. It takes preconceived notions on good and bad, wicked and fair, and completely scrambles expectations. It pushed the message to look deeper than the surface - and that the depths of a person can be much different from what you think of them by how they look, or even who they are.
The Chicago Chapter has events planned through the rest of the summer and up to December. Check out the Central Regional events calendar - http://tinyurl.com/5w7ws8
I finally caught up with the Drowsy Chaperone tour in Dallas where the Dallas DB Chapter organized both a before and after chat with the actors Cliff Bemis, Georgia Engel and Mark Ledbetter who are all active Christian Scientists.
This is the third in a series of chat-backs these actors have graciously agreed to do with DiscoveryBound Chapters, including Chicago and Houston. Next they head to Kansas City and they should be back in Austin, TX in August.
The show of course was brilliant and the actors answered questions from curious youth and adults about life as actors, becoming actors and about how they applied Christian Science to their careers. Also, how they supported each other as well as the rest of the cast and crew.
The three actors commented on how great it was for all three of them to be in the show. Georgia has been with the show from early on while Mark and Cliff joined for the tour. Cliff Bemis has worked with Georgia in the past as well as with Mark, but this was the first time for Mark to meet Georgia.
Mark made a neat comment about how the audition process used to be such a burden. But this was before he realized he could only end up in the roll that was right for him. He talked about 'the usual suspects' - the group of men about his age and look who are most likely to be at any audition he's going to be at, those who are vying for the same part. Mark is grateful for a unique comradeship amongst his 'competitors' because they support one another and congratulate each other for getting the part as they know they will each find their own place.
The CS actors in The Drowsy Chaperone: Cliff Bemis, playing Feldzieg (“Murder she Wrote” and “Nancy Drew”) http://www.cliffbemis.com
Georgia Engel playing Mrs. Tottendale (“Mary Tyler Moore”, “Everybody Loves Raymond”)
Mark Ledbetter, playing Robert Martin (the groom). ("Marry Poppins", "White Christmas") http://www.markledbetter.com
More detailed bios and info on the show at: http://www.drowsychaperone.com/
After a workshop packed day on Saturday, we took things a little easier on Sunday. In part because most CS churches in New York don't start until 11am! So we had an easy morning before heading down to 1st Church NYC where we packed the Sunday School.
Afterwards we strolled over to Central Park where we had a pizza lunch, free time and some discussion sessions to relate our workshops to the metaphysical theme "Man is the expression of Soul".
We continued east to 3rd Church for our talent show. Adults and youth alike shared their talents in dancing, singing, playing instruments, reading poetry and monologuing.
To cap off the evening, we had an interesting time getting everyone from the upper east side over to Pier 83 on the west side of mid-town where the Circle Line cruise ship took us out on a great tour along the Hudson. We saw the western shore of Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and the East River. All with the sunset and the sparkling city lights bouncing off the water.
Monday, everybody got packed up and headed home! Good times!
Today we divided the group of 110 youths into four groups: music, theater, visual arts & dance - and sent them off to various corners of Manhattan to meet with our awesome workshop facilitators. Each of these facilitators are professionals in the corresponding field and they provided a great program for the youth. They spoke on their experience, shared healings and testimonies, and provided practical tips and pointers related to the industry.
The photo is of the Audition Workshop by Peter Link, a notable director. He gave a half hour talk abut the the audition process, then let a few of the students apply what he said. This was a combined activity for the music and theater groups.
The dance group got to choreograph their own dance and the visual arts group toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art, then many went off into Central Park to sketch.
Later that afternoon, we all met up in Bryant Park and walked over to Times Square to check it all out before settling into an amazing performance of The Lion King.
We're all in New York now and the scene is abuzz. We all met at 9am at the youth hostel up on 103rd and Amsterdam to formulate a plan. Then we all fanned out across the city to put on the hands on touches at our various locations.
Many of us regrouped for lunch near Times Square and dispersed again to finish our tasks. We reconvened at the hostel mid-afternoon to stuff folders, build the name tags, sharpen pencils and continue to iron out the various details that is part of a program of this size.
We also learned that many of the planes across the country have been delayed on their arrival to NYC. But we are unphased by that and are eager for our participants to arrive and thrive in this amazing program.
I rolled into the village of Dexter, MI through patches of rain and overcast skies after driving up from Carmel, IN. Doug Jackson was standing at the end of his driveway with an orange traffic vest and walkie talkies to assist me with backing my rig onto his driveway. As it turns out, we didn't block any traffic and the trailer tucked nicely next to the garage.
The next morning we loaded the canoe and kayaks, met up with about 20 others from the Detroit Chapter and headed for the river. Ten boats hit the water, 8 canoes, a double kayak and myself in a single kayak.
It was a beautiful sunny day, high of 66F and 8 miles of cool refreshing water. Mostly calm water with a few riffles and some overhanging branches kept things interesting. Check out the video.
Sunday after church, the membership of the many Houston churches were invited to come hear about how the summit went. John Cheney, the event photographer put together a great slide show of the event and Bill Warrick of TMC Youth gave a similar recap to my previous posting. There was also a chance for folks to ask questions about the event.
Naturally, one of the questions was about how to continue this momentum and keep youth, not just interested in CS, but pro-active in it. Bill Warrick admitted TMC Youth did not have that planned out beyond the realm of Sunday School. But Blake, who with others, is keen to get a DiscoveryBound chapter popped up and announced to this group that the DB Chapter board for Houston was already being formed and moving forward.
A number of parents and interested parties came down to meet with Blake, Lindsay (the Houston Summit Chair) and I about launching into a DB Chapter for Houston.
BJ has been doing a great job keeping the Dallas chapter going and put on a great event of whilrly ball (think lacrosse on bumper cars) and laser tag today after Church. There were about 25 youth in attendance, including a contingent from Austin.
The sad thing is BJ is off to college next year and we need to get some others involved to run the chapter. Sloan, who I met a few days ago was there, and we also found Dan who is keen to see the Dallas chapter continue. They are all going to meet with BJ and keep things rolling.
The Dallas chapter is also getting a bus organized to get folks down to Houston for the summit.
I met Aaron, the Round-up Ranch Director from Adventure Unlimited, in Dallas to start our three-day Camp Show tour. We had a great turnout at all of the shows and lots of good questions were asked about life at the ranches. In Austin and Houston the DiscoveryBound chapters made use of this meeting opportunity. In Austin, they held a brainstorming session to plan out what the youth want to do for the rest of the year and in Houston the camp show was held at a climbing gym so everybody could go and get on the rock and play after the show.
