One is called Soul Survivor. It's big tag line on there brochure is:
Equipping you to live out your faith beyond the confines of a festival, church or youth group because Jesus affects EVERYTHING!
The other is VCYC. It's tag line is:
Equipping young people with God's Word to impact their world.Sound familiar? Actually it sounds a lot like Soul Survivors tag line! So what's the difference? And how does a Youth Minister make a decision about where he sends his youth? (Note: the church I'm at has a long history with VCYC so that's how I make my decision at the moment)
I thought I'd do a little bit of a comparison of each organisations advertising and say what I like and don't like!
Things I like:
- They have pictures of people having fun on their home page of the website! It's one of the first things you notice. They also have a pretty cool promo video (which features me) so that gives them bonus points!
- It's pretty cheap! Anywhere from $50 to $95 depending on your accommodation option!
- It is very obvious who the speakers are (I know 3 out of the 4) so I can trust what is going to be said, they have themed it the whole conference around Hebrews 12:2, fixing our eyes on Jesus, so I'm also pretty well aware of what to expect from the talks.
- They are not trying to be a big evangelistic event. Sure some non-Chrisitan youth might come, but they are targetting this primarily at Christians. I think this is a good move!
Things I don't like:
- The prominence given to the speakers! On their main poster that they send out for us to put up on the walls features very prominently at the bottom large photos of the 4 speakers and their names. That's great for me as a Youth Minister in enabling me to make a judgement about whether or not I would want to support such an event. However, I'm not so sure how great that is for advertising to young people. First of all I doubt that many of my youth are really that aware of who, Steve Brown, Camille Imberger, Adam Hince or Kieran Carr are! If they know who they are, then I'm not sure that they come for the speaking anyway. Sure that's a very important part of what happens at these kind of conferences, but not sure if it's a drawcard for your poster. You could still make it clear that there would be talks without plastering 4 unknown faces on your poster. Unless they get Miley Cyrus or Barrack Obama to come and speak one year, the speaker is probably not going to be a drawcard to the average youth.
Things I like:
- Despite my previous point about the tag lines being similar, I really like the idea Soul Survivor is pushing of the 360 Degree Gospel. I think that is a really effective way of getting across the message that the Gospel should have an affect on all aspects and areas of our life. It gets across the notion of living a fully sold out gospel life very well.
- I also like how their brochure/poster says "YOU". Eg. "It's all about equpping you to live out your faith..." It makes it feel more like the youth are being personaly invited.
Things I don't like:
- I like their opening values statment on their website:
"The heart of Soul Survivor is to envision young people to capture first the vision of Jesus, and then his calling on their lives and then to equip them, train them and release them into ministry - so that they do it wherever they go, wherever they are. The Bible is our final authority on all matters. We want everything we do at Soul Survivor to be in line with the Bible, and in step with the Holy Spirit. We value Bible-based lifestyles, teachable attitudes and unity in the hearts of everyone involved.However, I'm not a fan of the ordering of the values under that. Worship, Justice and Compassion, Evangelsim and Discipleship, Holy Spirit Empowered Lives and Ministry. My alarm bells ring when I see social justice elevated above evangelism and discipleship. In fact they get raised when anything is placed above them. However, I guess they could be in a random order, but I doubt it.
We are committed to non-hype. We want to provide space and opportunity for young people to genuinely connect with God."
- I don't see how registration can be so much more expensives than VCYC. Minimum is $90 for an early bird and max is $130. What do they do that is so different and requires so much more money?
- I also don't like how I can't find out anything about the speakers at the conference. Sure 360 degree Gospel is a cool idea. But who's going to convey that to the youth?
In the end I'm certain that God uses both Soul Survivor and VCYC to do great things in the lives of young people. There probably isn't really that much difference between the two conferences and you would most likely hear similar things at both. Maybe they should join forces?
Wouldn't the main difference be that Soul Survivor is world wide?
ReplyDeleteWhen ever I've read anything about Soul Survivor, social justice has been a huge part of what they do - some of their conferences have huge amounts of time given to going out and doing something for your community.
As for the order of values. They aren't saying Christian values are..., they're saying our values are... It really makes perfect sense that an organisation might be more aimed at one thing than another.
As for price - surely you Chris should know how many things can affect the cost of something - for example, what venue the place uses could equal a huge price difference!
Hehe, gosh I've rambled. And I sound like I work for one of the organisations!
My main point is your being a bit nitpicky:p
Hey John.
ReplyDeleteAs far as price goes, I think I might have forgotten to mention they are held at exactly the same place!
As for values, if your tag line is "Equipping You to live out your faith beyond the confines of a festival, church or youth group because Jesus affects everything", then I believe evangelism and discipleship should be the number one value! Otherwise you are implying that you mean you are teaching people how to run soup kitchens! Which is a great thing to do, but not exclusively Christian and not going to get you into heaven.
I guess that leaves venue out as a reason for different price!!:p
ReplyDeleteI guess my point is they are one organisation who have their own focus. Tag lines mean very little - if anything they are a broad idea behind what they are do. I'm pretty sure I would fail miserably if I relied on one conference to equip me to live out my faith.
I think I just don't really care what your tag line is and what order your values are. Plenty of places put discipleship and evangelism on the top of their list and never do a thing about it.
I'd just pick one, go to it and judge it on that - not the order of the values on their website.
Hehe, I feel dumb for writing so much to say 'who cares', kinda a contradiction. This is why Itry not to comment much:p
Chris, doing evangelism doesn't get you into heaven any more quickly than working in a soup kitchen. Both of those ideas would be based on our own work and I know you don't mean that. Not to mention many many lives have been transformed and turned towards Christ because of the work of places like soup kitchens. Just food for thought.
ReplyDeleteHi Chris,
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has a bit to do with VCYC here are my thoughts. The biggest difference between the 2 conventions is the age target. VCYC is only targeted at year 7 - 12s - that's it. Soul survivor is open to wider range than that and I think the talks and entire weekend would attract a slightly older crowd - maybe year 9 till about 25 yrs olds (but I'd have to check that).
I do also think that the theology of the 2 conferences is different. On the whole I would say that VCYC is more conservative and Soul Survivor is more charismatic in their theology. You just have to look at the churches that the two conventions stemmed from to work this out. This is played out in the way that the main sessions are shaped and the different emphasis that each conference has.
When it comes to VCYC's motto - Whilst I think that this does capture some of what VCYC is on about I don't think it hits the nail on the head and that's why the committee has been working hard to rethink what VCYC actually is and what it should be. I'm keen as the chairperson to make VCYC known as a convention that serves and supports the visions and goals of local youth ministries. That means doing things over the weekend that will add value to what you, as a youth minister, is trying to do throughout the rest of the year. We recognise that VCYC is only one weekend out of an entire year and we don't want VCYC to run so that we can out do what youth groups are already doing or just for the sake of making a big convention - we want to run a convention that will God will use to bless youth groups. That's our aim. How do we do that? By making the weekend really easy for youth groups to come (eg. low prices, having accommodation and food available) and by using the tools that God has given the church to build up the church - the Word, his Spirit, each other's gifts etc. We need to make sure that every speaker is solid theologically so youth ministers can sit back and relax without fearing that things said from the front will be harmful to their youth groups.
And on that note, that's why we put the speakers heads so clearly on advertising - because what is said at the front is really important and we want to be clear about who is speaking and what they'll be speaking on. And - Although we make advertising to hand out to every teenager we also realise that teenagers don't come to something just because they have a cool flyer - they go because their friends are going or their youth group is going. With this in mind we try to put things on the flyers that will be helpful for youth ministers as they make the decision as to whether or not they will take their youth groups (and also for parents as they decide whether or not they'll pay for it).
Soul Survivor and VCYC did think about joining once upon a time but I wasn't part of those discussions so I can't comment on what took place. However, I do know that what VCYC has become especially in the past couple of years is notably different to Soul Survivor so I think there is definitely room for these 2 conventions in Victoria.
(Speaking now as an ex HTD Youth Minister) As for HTD - it's your choice which one you come to. Even though HTD has had a long history with VCYC it doesn't mean there isn't room for change. The second you think that Soul Survivor or any other conference serves the youth ministry at HTD better than VCYC then check it out and jump on board. (VCYC hat back on) In the meantime, the VCYC committee will be working hard to make sure that we are constantly improving and changing so that we can become increasingly helpful for youth ministries in Victoria. Love your feedback after this year's convention!!
Lisa B.
Hey Joey!
ReplyDeleteGood reminder that it's not the order or priority of our values that save us but our faith Jesus Christ and his saving work on the cross.
Lisa.. thanks for your comments! I did have you (as a reader) in mind when I wrote this, so I'm glad you've responded! I take your point about speakers advertising and what ultimately gets youth along. I really enjoyed last years VCYC and I'm certainly looking forward to this years! Just making sure I've thought through things properly! So your comments certainly help that!