It was a day of fun, interspersed with a message urging caution when dealing with technology.
Heritage Church in Escalon was the site for a one-day Tech Safe Teens conference on Saturday, July 8, with several teens from the church youth group taking part.
Casey Ryan, the Youth Director at Heritage Church, said the goal was to give kids the opportunity to come together in a fun, relaxed atmosphere while having the chance to come away with some useful information.
“This is an annual summer youth conference for middle school and we started when things were kind of shut down for COVID,” Ryan explained. “A lot of the camps weren’t happening so we decided basically to put the camp on for one day here at the church.”
This year, he said, over 50 middle school students signed up to attend.
“We have two lessons followed by a small group discussion and then basically five hours of hang out and fun time,” he noted.
Along with providing solid information on being ‘Tech Safe’ in this day and age of social media, Ryan said they offered several options for fun.
“We have inflatables, we have slides, we have Spec Ops laser tag,” the Youth Director said. “We have a café, so there’s lot of things for the students to do and just to kind of hang out and build relationships with each other and with the leaders.”
There was a variety of food and drink available at the café, and indoor games were offered as well, in addition to plenty of music.
Participant Alex Rendon said he enjoyed the water slide and playing ‘gaga ball’, which he described as a mix of dodgeball and soccer.
“My parents did a good job, teaching me about technology and the dangers,” he said, adding that they have slowly allowed him a little more screen time but he also is aware of how to be on the lookout for potential trouble in the tech arena.
Ryan said he felt the ‘Tech Safe Teens’ theme was appropriate.
“There’s a lot of dangers around technology especially with trafficking and all these other things as well as just unhealthy amounts of time spent on your device,” Ryan explained. “All that time can make you view the real world and your life from a distorted point of view… we touch on all those things.”
The conference included a general discussion of the dangers in the morning, followed by the free time, with the group coming back together for a closing session.
“This morning we talked about all those dangers and then tonight we’re going to come back and we’re going to talk about how do we navigate those things,” Ryan noted on Saturday afternoon. “What skills or strategies does the Bible give on how to navigate those things.”
All the attendees at the Saturday conference are members of the Youth Group at Heritage Church. They have regular meetings on Wednesday nights during the school year and have the option to attend the one-day conference in the summer.
