Anaheim 07

Anaheim ’07 will go down in the national Mennonite Brethren youth convention history book as a groundbreaking event. Slightly less than 1,100 high school students and sponsors attended the youth convention held March 31 to April 3 at the Anaheim (Calif.) Hilton Hotel.

Anaheim ‘07 was the first time the youth convention:

had a hands-on format that included ministry tracks designed to encourage kids to use their gifts and skills in God’s kingdom and an all-day ministry experience that involved all attendees.
was hosted by Tabor College, Fresno Pacific University and MB Biblical Seminary, the three U.S. MB educational institutions. The convention received a $20,000 grant from Ministry Quest, the seminary’s high school leadership program.
was held in an urban center. Previous conventions had been held in mountain settings and at full-service conference centers that were adequate but offered limited programming versatility. The hotel venue relieved planning team members of a number of responsibilities, including security, room assignments and maintenance duties.

The list of firsts is impressive. Impressive because changing both the location and the format significantly altered the convention in a host of ways. Impressive because doing something for the first time means that one can never—or at least seldom—say, “Well, last time we….” Impressive because it worked.

“The comments from youth leaders, students and the evaluations all suggest this was successful,” says co-chair Tim Neufeld. “The conference was a new model, and new models are risky. We weren’t sure how things would work out. While numbers were down, the outcomes were up. Attendees caught a vision for some core Anabaptist values, experienced incarnational ministry, were challenged to live missionally and had fun!”

“All of our dreams seemed to come together,” said co-chair Rick Bartlett in an interview immediately after the convention. The dreams that became Anaheim ’07 first emerged three years ago when Bartlett, Neufeld and Wendell Loewen agreed to serve as co-chairs of the 2007 youth convention.

The three men represent the three U.S. Mennonite Brethren educational institutions—MB Biblical Seminary, Fresno Pacific University and Tabor College, respectively—and so for the first time in the youth convention’s 32-year history the schools would directly support the event. “Having the three institutions do this is a really good idea,” says Bartlett. The three then recruited additional individuals representing each of the districts to form the planning team.

From the beginning, the co-chairs were committed to giving the 2007 convention a strong ministry emphasis. This goal led them to shift the venue to a large urban center with sufficient numbers of faith-based ministries to offer every convention attendee the potential to serve or minister in some way.

A significant factor in the decision to hold the convention in the greater Los Angeles area, says Loewen, was the hope that holding the quadrennial event in the Pacific District Conference would increase PDC ownership. Knowing that it would be important to garner buy-in from the PDC and to “sell” the new location and format to youth workers, 18 months prior to the national youth convention the co-chairs hosted a Youth Leaders’ Summit at the Anaheim Hilton. Youth workers toured the hotel and surrounding areas and heard about the new format.

Unlike typical conventions that are speaker-focused, the Anaheim ’07 program gave equal “weight” to three events: general sessions with speaker Roy Crowne, Sunday’s three-hour ministry track sessions designed to develop students’ gifts and interests, and Monday’s Tourformation intended to expose students to needs and service opportunities in greater LA.

These three events were intended to emphasize core Anabaptist values: incarnational ministry, spiritual nurture and formation in community, engaging the world with the gospel and every believer’s call to ministry.
The convention schedule included morning prayer times, daily youth leader meetings and a variety of late night events, the most popular of which was “Anaheim Idol,” modeled after the popular TV show “American Idol.” A guided indoor prayer path was a new feature available throughout the convention.

While youth group time was built into the Sunday schedule, sponsors were encouraged to debrief with their students throughout the convention. Sharing the hotel Saturday and Sunday with two other large groups— youth attending a dance competition and clinic held in the Anaheim Hilton and a cheerleading competition held at the nearby Anaheim Convention Center—gave sponsors the unexpected opportunity to talk with youth about a number of lifestyle issues and the truth of the convention focus: God is at work everywhere.

Representatives from the U.S. Conference, MB Biblical Seminary, MBMS International, Fresno Pacific University, Tabor College, Colombia Bible College, Canadian Mennonite University, Avante Records, Mennonite Central Committee, Samaritan’s Purse and Mennonite Mission were on hand to talk with students and sponsors. Other exhibitors that lined the hallway outside the general session meeting room included Ephraim Clothing, One Time Blind and Door of Hope.

Youth groups had their largest block of free time Sunday afternoon. Students enjoyed the hotel swimming pool and hot tubs, made a quick visit to nearby Disneyland or Disney’s California Adventure or walked to Downtown Disney, an outdoor pedestrian mall with speciality shops, restaurants and entertainment. Students visited nearby beaches; one group found that a stretch limo proved to be stylish and economical. Students were asked to always stay in groups, not so much because of safety concerns but because it would make it easier for sponsors to keep track of them.

Students were housed on boys’ and girls’ floors, a request the Hilton staff found unusual but accommodated. In an effort to let groups control their own food costs, youth groups were responsible for their own meals. A 10- to 20-minute walk took groups to any of 43 restaurants along Harbor Boulevard and in Downtown Disney. Many groups brought snacks and food for breakfast. Buhler (Kan.) MB Church came with a volunteer crew that prepared and served three meals a day to almost 40 students and sponsors.

In the eyes of co-chairs Neufeld, Bartlett and Loewen, Anaheim ’07 was a success. “This surpassed my expectations,” said Bartlett and the students seem to agree. Conferees completed a written evaluation Tuesday morning and 80 percent agreed or agreed strongly that the conference was “better than expected.” Overall the evaluation was overwhelmingly positive. These are the kinds of results the planning team was hoping and praying for,” says Neufeld.

While responses to the new model have been positive, no one is predicting either the location or the format of the 2011 national youth convention. Attendance from Central and Southern district conferences dropped from the 1993 youth convention by about 340, says Neufeld, while the Pacific District saw several churches participate for the first time and the North Carolina District doubled their attendance. “The tricky part to understand is whether the decline in attendance is due to the change in location or a trend in conferencing for small denominations,” says Neufeld.

While the details of the next convention are anyone’s guess, history tells us that God will use the event to impact Mennonite Brethren young people.

—CF