I've been busy

I just got back to work after about 2 weeks of travelling around the the Northeast doing the Lord's work.
Heh.
Okay, that makes it sound a lot grander than it was, but I did take a group of 16 young people and 4 of us adults to a Work Camp in Hoosick Falls, NY for a week (July 8 - 14). I did this before with a few kids from St. Stephen's in VA, but this was a totally different experience. These teens were at least a year or two older than the one's I took before, and these teenagers actually wanted to go! Can you imagine that! We were the only Catholic group there, and that could have been problematic (my church had issues with anti-Catholic sentiment among some of our more fundamentalistic brothers and sisters at last year's work camp), but all the other church groups treated us with as much respect and love as I could have hoped for. I had an awesome crew of young people to work with most of whom had been to more work camps than me. As I get pictures back from the kids, I'll post them on my newly-created Myspace page. (I'll get to that in a second.)

Last week, I was in Boston at an "Institute in Lifelong Faith Formation." Exploring the various models and methods of faith formation across the entire lifespan. I learned all sorts of good stuf about multiple intelligences, the 4MAT process of learning, different learning and teaching styles and read a great book about teaching by Parker Palmer called The Courage to Teach. Look it up if you've ever been or might consider becoming a teacher.

Yes, I did just set up a Myspace. I had to, really. I'm currently employed as a youth minister and it would be silly to ignore one of the most popular ways in which young people communicate. I mean, one of the freshmen girls promoed a pretty awesome movie night for the parish almost entirely though Myspace. We had nearly 50 people come out to it. Every one of the young people on my work crew at camp told me that the best way to stay in touch with them is through their Myspace pages. So I have one now. I'll still use this as my primary blog though.