Workshop Accomplished

Well we made it through, and no one threw anything at us. I felt really good all through the workshop and it was a lovely, (large) affirming group who gave us lots of nodding heads and yes-yeses. Scott led the opening prayer, then I kind of presented the theories, then Scott took up the questions and comments at the end.
The DRE's balked a little at my poo-pooing of service hours (and Scott did too, the rascal!) and some (okay, really just one) thought I was saying Mass was optional- and wondered if I agreed that parents should make their kids go to Mass.... (yes, I sure do). But mostly people were pretty agreeable with what we said.
At one point I asked them to imagine an Adolescent Faith Formation program if Confirmation didn't exist... and a huge crowd of them shouted back to me "NOBODY WOULD COME!!!" Sad, huh? And for the most part, most churches, of course that's true. When people named their "challenges" in the beginning of the workshop, they placed most of the blame on kids, families, sports, etc... but nobody said "my program's so boring that none of the kids are getting anything out of it". We told them Jim Rayburn's quote (he "invented" Young Life)- "It's a sin to bore a kid with the Gospel."
I talked too long, and didn't leave enough time for questions and answers. I wish we'd had more time to give concrete answers to their questions, but we didn't. Scott gave the best answer of the day- a woman raised her hand and said "Okay, so how do we talk to kids?" (which I thought was such a wild question! How do you talk to kids? Are there really people leading programs and classes and being perplexed on this level as to what they're doing?) I was kind of stumped, and looked at Scott... who gave the best answer or the day, I thought. He said "You start by listening to kids. Get to know them, show them that you're interested and care about them, and EARN the right to be heard by them." We wrapped by reminding them of the missionary analogy. It fit together pretty nicely!
I found out after the workshop that a Diocesan staffer had been in there with us the whole time- it was someone I had heard of but didn't know. Apparently she had planned to just watch the beginning but decided to stay for the whole thing. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, although when I walked past her later she didn't leap up to shake my hand. I felt a little worried after the workshop that I'd been too rebellious/radical, but maybe that's just a reflection of the fact that I've been in trouble for what I've said so often lately...
So there it is. Next on the horizon is Thanksgiving, and then NCCYM just a week and a half away. I can't WAIT!