Youth Ministry Conference

Today I had the pleasure of attending the first ever Youth Ministry Conference for the Archdiocese of Houston/Galveston with Daisy and Ruth. It was put together extremely well and I think all who attended walked away refreshed and with new insights.

Specifically I wanted to touch on one exercise that I went through that really opened my eyes and made me realize some things. Often in our lives we have things that we struggle to find balance in. Our work, spiritual life, personal life, time with friends/family, finances, and so on all pull us in different directions. What I learned today was a good way to step back and examine these things, reflect on where I am right now with these issues, and possibly realize ways to help improve things I may need to. The speaker that was giving me all this insight was Gene Monterastelli. I can be honest and say that I had no knowledge of Gene prior to meeting him today and I really don't know too much about him now either (except for the bio in the brochure). I do know that you can Google his name and he has some interesting stuff on his website and he has a pretty cool book out.

The basics of the exercise was this: Gene gave us eight topics to chose from and then we were to address them in three different parts. The eight topics were: Our spirituality, immediate family, external family/friends, our physical health, our education, our vocation, personal finance, and our leisure time. The first exercise was to pick one of these topics to focus on and think of the "best case scenario" regarding that topic. For example, if someone chose physical health, maybe the best case was they were made of lean muscle from head to toe and they were crowned sexiest man/woman alive. The real challenge when starting was this: honestly, the topic that you would most want to avoid is probably the one you should attack. That topic could possibly be the one that needs the most work. Who knows? Only you...

I am not going to go into detail about my answers and what not, but I will tell you that I chose my immediate family. I can tell you that as of today, right now, my relationship in this area is not where I want it to be. I chose it because it was the one topic I kinda wanted to avoid.

Ok, so you know the first part: best case scenario. The second part was the worst case scenario. Now here you have to be honest with yourself. Worst case scenario could include sickness, extreme poverty, and even death.

The third part of the exercise is to find out where you are right this moment in regards to the topic that's chosen. You can probably see where this is going by now. But think about it. Often we just think of all the things wrong with a particular thing in our life, and we act like it's the end of the world. But if we evaluate things further, we can concentrate on how we can change things and get where we want to be.

So to sum of the exercise we did the following. Look over the "best case scenario" and review the "worst case" also. Now, take a good look at where you are RIGHT NOW and finally rate the topic from 1-10 (1 meaning it's currently at the worst case, 10 meaning it's at the best case).

Well, like I mentioned earlier, I'm not going to go into details about the topic I chose but I will say this in closing... If you would have just asked me if I would rate this issue in my life from one to ten, I probably would have rated it a two or three. But after taking the short time (10-15 min) to do this exercise, I personally rated my topic a six, maybe even a seven. Wow!

I really do think this a great exercise to try with issues that affects your life. It doesn't have to be limited to the eight topics mentioned above. It really put my relationship with my family into perspective and rejuvenated my energy to concentrate on things that can get me to a ten, which is an awesome best case scenario that I know now is possible and achievable.

Gene also gave us a quote to reflect on before his session ended. I am a guy who LOVES quotes! I love to search for inspirational quotes online and to pick up quote books; quoting others is one of the best ways to help prove the point you are trying to pass on.

"When our soul desires something, the universe will conspire to help us achieve our dreams."

Remember: it's never as bad as it seems and anything is possible. Just have faith... He will guide you.

~Stephen