#29-Going to conferences in other states to hang out with people from your own state

You know those big conferences that we get really excited for? Those conferences that girls have special outfits picked out for months in advance (some guys too)?

General Conference, Youth Congress, Music conferences, Because of the Times, Inferno, etc....

Those conferences that you wonder if this may be the one that you will find "the one" who God has called you to marry?

Have you ever noticed who you hang out with once you are at those conferences?

Yup, all the friends that you had before the conference started that are either from your youth group or from your state (who you probably met at camp).

It's kind of sad actually. We isolate ourselves so much that we can't even convince ourselves to reach out to those of our same beliefs but are from different states....

Now I understand that there are many out there (especially bible college kids) who don't let this routine get them down, and socialize without barriers. But for the majority of Apostolics this is a very difficult thing to do.

In the end this is what happens for most of us:

• We set aside hundreds of dollars for clothes, gas money, hotel room and food in order to...
• Get in a car full of familiar faces from our youth group.
• Whereupon we arrive at our destination and spend hours in front of a mirror doing our hair and trying to look good for the imaginative future spouse/mate that we hope to meet at the conference (or dress up nice in order to compete with our peers of who can look the best).
• We hear a sermon that makes us pray hard, gets us excited about God, makes us cry, and convince ourselves that when we get back home, things will be different spiritually (which will last all of 3 weeks). This sermon could have been purchased via dvd or cd whereupon it would be listened to at home (saving us money to travel to the conference)
• We go out to eat and socialize with the faces we drove down to this conference with or meet up with people we know from camp.
  
• We meet few, and talk with even fewer.
  

All of these benefits could have been enjoyed with roughly the same experience (with the exception of being in a stadium/ church full of young people) without the cost had we just stayed home....