WebsiteName

------------CLICK HERE FOR BROCHURE ------------ --- CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION FORMS---

 

INFORMATIONAL LETTER FOR PASTORS AND YOUTH WORKERS

Dear Pastors & Youth Workers:

Enclosed in this packet you should find everything you need to invite and register your Senior High Youth for CONVO this year! We have worked hard to get these materials out to you as early as possible. We have also made every effort to make the process as easy and clear as possible; but please accept our thanks (and apologies) in advance for the work you will have to do to make things happen. You are awesome!

Please print and distribute the CONVO Brochure and registration forms you find within to your Senior High youth (linked above). If you have access to the internet you may find it easier to print things from the .PDF files we have made available for you here on our website. You can also visit our CONVO blog for the latest info on CONVO and for any updates that may occur: pnwumc.blogspot.com. We hope you will empower your youth to consider submitting a FAITH TALK and to invite their friends who may never have attended CONVO before (with a DISCOUNT incentive)! In these ways we hope that CONVO will be both interactive and inviting!

As you are distributing CONVO materials to your youth, be sure to do so in a way that makes it possible for you to honor the deadlines. If it were completely up to me we wouldn’t have deadlines, as I always want to wait for that last registration. We do however have to honor several commitments to our host (UPS) and it is simply impossible to process everything at the last minute. Please review both the early-bird and last-minute deadlines in advance so you can get your youth to CONVO in a timely and cost-effective way.

Speaking of money, we are also working hard to keep CONVO affordable. Despite an increase in costs to us, we have frozen the price at the same rate as last year (in fact it is cheaper if you can take advantage of some of the incentives). But we recognize that some youth are not financially capable of paying $135 for an event. We ask for your help in identifying truly needy families and we’ll partner with your local church to make CONVO a more affordable option through Conference and church-level SCHOLARSHIPS.

It must seem already that we are asking for a lot; but I want to ask for one more thing. While it is our hope that CONVO can be an event open and welcoming to all youth, we also must recognize that some youth may not be in a place on their journey where they can be asked to enter into our behavioral covenant (available to read on the registration form). We ask that local church leaders help us to discern this and to work with youth (and their parents) to make sure our doors are as open as possible to teens who may need an experience like CONVO in their lives.

Finally, a word about our event. The CONVO theme this year is “Can you hear me now?” We have been thinking a lot about how challenging it is to hear God; to know what God wants for us. It has also crossed our minds that its’ even harder to hear God when we can’t even communicate well with our friends and family (not to mention the people who don’t like us - or who we don’t like). We have invited Rev. Mike Ratliff to join us as our keynote speaker this year. Mike is the Associate General Secretary of the Division on Ministries with Young People for the United Methodist Church. It was my privilege to work for him before we both took on our latest roles in ministry. I have no doubt that he will have something of deep value to share with the youth of our Annual Conference when we meet May 24-26 for CONVO 2008!

Please do not hesitate to call with any questions. We are here to help!

Patrick Scriven
Associate Director of Connectional Ministries with Youth and Young Adults
Pacific Northwest Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church
pscriven@pnwumc.org • c: (206) 304.9284