Youth Ministry Network (YMN) Facilitator, Erik Cave

I love being a YMN Facilitator, though it hasn’t been all easy.  When I was asked to serve I thought I knew what I was getting into.  After all, I was there when the job description was written.  Marti Burger put together a meeting of longtime youth workers to discuss the state and future of the then active Frontline Coaches program.  We prayed a lot, we threw around some crazy ideas, and we managed tense situations when we didn’t exactly agree.  The driving question for our discussion was, “How do we best care for youth workers and ministries?”  All of us had come from a different conference so each had a unique perspective on how to answer this question.  Ultimately Marti was able to synthesize our whiteboard full of ideas to something that made sense.  Each conference needed a person to help facilitate a network of youth workers and ministries to be known, connected and resourced.  I left the meeting encouraged by what this could mean for the North Pacific Conference.

Here in the NorPac we had already put together a Youth Commission that watched over our retreats and worked with the Frontline Coaches to care for youth workers.   Continue Reading »