Kingdom Minded

Well, our 3rd annual three day youth conference "RENEWVAL" is finally over and it has left me with a loaded question..."What ever happened to being Kingdom minded?" Let me explain. Our vision for this amazing youth conference we host has always been to build relationships, to build ourselves and to build the kingdom but somewhere along the way it seems that people have lost the most important element of what RENEWVAL was birthed to accomplish; the aspect of building the kingdom. Let me explain further. Every year me and the Identity Student Ministry leaders bust our tails to plan, promote, and host RENEWVAL and every year we pursue other youth ministries in the Orlando area to come and participate with us in worship. Our goal is that we all (all Orlando youth ministries) benefit from the amazing atmosphere RENEWVAL creates to share the message of Christ with as many teens as possible and every year multiple youth pastors promise me they will be in attendance with a van full of youth and every year, all but one youth pastor disappoint. Whatever happened to integrity? What ever happened to being a man/woman of your word? I just don't get it. Is it a fear of losing their kids to another youth group? Is it a fear of comparison? There have been many times that I have brought our teens to other's youth ministry events in support of what other ministries are doing and even if I had no youth with me I would still come alone to support. I just guess I don't understand prioritizing the success of a "ministry" over the success of the "Kingdom." Am I making any sense? I think that somewhere along the road of building ministries churches have lost the most important aspect of what God called us to do; seek the lost. Somewhere we've turned to focus on ourselves and we've lost the element of evangelism; and it's not just other youth pastors. I was also left scratching my head after RENEWVAL because our own youth. Some of our youth brought unsaved friends to RENEWVAL and they got saved (PTL) but others... When will we get past our fears of rejection and start inviting our unsaved friends to church. Are we so insecure of how people will perceive us that we choose our comfort zone over someones eternity. Don't get me wrong...I could use work in this area as well...I just thought that "our" youth would have come through with their end of the deal for such an amazing event that they are so proud of. I guess somewhere along the road it became all about..."What can "I" get out of RENEWVAL?" instead of "What can "THEY" get out of RENEWVAL?"