Starfield
They sound like they are a great band! I’ve been listening to an MP3 of an event I read about on Marko’s blog. It’s hilarious. I’m loving it. It’s a brave man to send a potentially humiliating MP3 around the world – but I love it.

It’s a challenging scenario for us as leaders of Eastercamp. We’ve been growing and as such the environment within which we bring speakers and contributors is changing. So we are starting to explore the international options. We’ve had plenty of speakers from Australia, and we’ve loved it. But the somewhat strange reality is that finding speakers of charisma, quality and consistency to speak to crowds of our size, who can also exegete our culture enough to not be lost at sea … well.. it’s hard work for anyone. So we need to start stretching our borders.

But there is a lot to consider. The cost isn’t the biggest issue, although there are airfares to consider (esp. for speakers families – what’s the point of coming to NZ if you don’t bring the kids and have a great time?) and then the chasm of speakers fees. We have traditionally paid such small amounts in comparison to typical speaking fees in the US and UK. Then consider the exchange rate. But that’s not the biggest issue.

I consider the biggest issue not even being whether or not a speaker is up to the task, but rather what we bring them into. How do we introduce them to our culture and environment in such a way that they feel embraced as well as involved. How do you communicate the deep, vibrant history of our camp tribe? In the past these challenges have belonged to other members of the oversight team, but as Programming Director my role is expanding into these liaison roles as well – something that’s been really successful with Andrew Palmer ..(I think – he may correct me).

Yup. Lots of things to consider.

Young Adults & Youth Ministry Under Review
Last night was part two of the process. Having not been at part one, I was a bit behind the eight ball, but this morning at youth ministry staff meeting, we all expressed disappointment with the process. It seemed far too shallow and skimming over the surface of some very small ideas. The truly big ideas are actually deep questions of church ideology and practicioning. So generally all round a bit frustrating.