Started out this morning going to Walt Mueller’s seminar called, Smoke and Mirrors: How marketing shapes and manipulates your students and what you can do about it. He does this seminar almost every year at the NYWC and I always go to it because there’s usually loads of new info. It’s such a crucial element to understanding our teens. So much excellent stuff that explains so much about our kids and how to communicate with them. Here are my notes:

Walt Mueller – Smoke and Mirrors notes

And then tonight Doug Fields gave an excellent talk in the general session about envy in ministry, something we all experience. Unfortunately I can’t post the audio here, but again, here are my notes:

Doug Fields – Ministry Envy notes

A couple highlights from today:

1. Dana won three drawings in the Exhibit Hall today! It was crazy. This morning she won a stack of books from Dare 2 Share and then this evening she won a free screening of the upcoming Expelled movie to be shown at our church before the release date in February. We went back over to Dare 2 Share again where she won another drawing for an evangelism training curriculum kit. Now if I could only get her to win me one of the many iPod or Wii giveaways because so far my name hasn’t been drawn for anything.
2. This afternoon Dana and I pretty much took it easy, enjoying a trip to the St. Louis Gateway Arch and then a drive into Illinois to grab dinner at Chick ‘Fil A since there aren’t any in Minnesota. And speaking of free stuff, she also got us tickets for two free chicken sandwiches because our order took too long. I’m tellin’ ya, my wife was on a roll for getting free stuff today!
3. I also met a couple more blog readers today, including Jake Bouma and Roy Probus. That’s always fun.
4. Dana ran into her old youth pastor from when she was in jr. high. Kinda cool to meet a guy who’s been in youth ministry so long that he now runs into his former students at youth worker conventions.

The wifi connection in our hotel is so bogged down that it’s really a pain to get online. Even when it does connect, it moves so slow that I think I’m going to wait until we get home to post any pictures.

Posted on November 4, 2007