Christmas Caroling

Last night at youth group we set our 6-12th graders Christmas Caroling in the community. This is also an annual tradition but in recent years we've seen less high school kids, until last night, when we had another strong showing. Part of the difficulty is that our youth group typically meet at 6:30 pm, which is late to begin caroling as businesses close and elderly people (our typical targets) are going to bed. So during this event we move the time up to 5:00 pm for a pizza dinner, then spend some time organizing into small groups and most groups are out of the door by 5:50, giving them a full two hours to carol.

We purposefully included 6th graders into our event last night in part because we've been trying to establish a 678 monthly group that gets together for fun and service projects. the 6th graders feel very young to high school seniors, but when we have enough people in total, you hardly notice the difference. To make this a success, I felt we needed to have some intentional mixing of older and younger kids in each car load, and then several cars traveled together on a specified route throughout the evening. So to begin with I asked each student to find a partner that they wanted to be with, and then I paired up these partners to make groups of 4 and 6. Several groups found themselves in packs of 3, which was acceptable and mingled with other 3-packs to form cars of 6.

We didn't ask the kids to sign up in advance, which is always very difficult, but worked out just fine. I did have 3-4 extra drivers, but they were happy to ride along and help sing.

To make this event over the top we also hosted a text message scavenger hunt while caroling. As a group they wrote down who was in their car and a cell number they wanted to have instructions texted to, and I sent about one instruction every 12 minutes. Last year I organized a picture taking scavenger hunt during caroling, but it was frustrating because some cars would spend too much time taking photos and make the other cars wait, so this year I tried to make everything able to do in a car while driving. It worked much better than the photos and still had some silliness involved. The scavenger hunt also allowed kids to have some reason to come back and share stories/creations/songs with each other.

All the groups were excited to begin with, but I would guess that only half the groups really followed through and participated. For various reasons (they were having too much fun, they felt too rushed, they were in nursing homes first and therefore unavailable to access supplies) some groups opted out, which was fine. The groups that participated, got really into it, creating a song, a craft made out of things found in their car, solving puzzles, singing Christmas songs... it was a good thing to do and didn't make anyone feel left out, only added fun when it needed to be added.

By far the best part of the caroling was hearing stories from each group as they returned. there were heart-warming moments, lots of laughter, and all kinds of sweet examples of the joy that our kids brought to nursing homes and shut-in across the city.

Gingerbread Houses

Last night at youth group we hosted our second annual gingerbread night at church. I carried this tradition on from my previous church, which allows teenagers to creatively tell the Jesus story using frosting, candy and graham crackers. In years past, this event was mostly built around learning the story of Christmas and having an excuse for kids to gather, create and share what they've made. This year, I wanted to focus a little more on stories, a theme that we've been exploring with our students (sunday school, senior stories, and next our confirmation classes), so instead of having each group create nativity gingerbread houses, I gave each group of students a different story from Jesus' life to be made into a diorama. The results are extremely creative and were loads of fun for the kids to make!

We began the evening by meeting in the youth room like usual. As we gather we always spend the first few minutes posing questions to the group and letting them share answers with each other while the leader pulls out clever answers or tries to engage kids who are more isolated. These are generally ice breaker questions in nature, just conversation starters to relax kids. We also have a counter full of ready snacks: capri-sun and bags of chips last night.

Then we moved on to the fellowship hall for games and the main event. as the students departed they were each given a playing card. I had presorted the deck (removing all face cards and then shuffled because we had less than 50 students). The random card they were assigned as they left would indicate two groups that they would be in.

Our first game was called Backtionary. I simple game where student form a single file line facing one direction. the person at the rear of the line looks at an image, then attempts to draw that image on the back of the person in front of them. this is continued until the front person received the image and draws it on a piece of paper. After all groups have completed their image, we reveal the real image and show off each team's drawing. laughter always ensues. For this game I initially placed each person in groups according to their suit on their card, then I invited adults to mix into each line - making even teams. The design was good, but there were too many students in each line. probably the ideal number is 6 people, most of our lines had more like 10-12, which was just too many because students got bored. after the first image, I decided to make things more interesting by introducing a series of images. It added a lot of energy to the crowd, but none of the students connected that I was actually drawing the nativity, a sheep, and a present (three elements of the Christmas story).

This should have been a great lead into our story time. I recapped teh game by saying that stories are so valuable: the help us connect, they are memorable, and they can be repplied later - which is why Jesus told so many parables. But sharing stories is hard, especially if you're using unconventional methods, which was the challenge. That's the message that should have been conveyed, but I think the smell of 50lbs of frosting was overwhelming and few understood the point of our first game or the gingerbread stories at this point.

Then using the same card they were given earlier, students found themselves according to number and sat down at a table. Leaders mixed into the tables, providing at least one leader per table. This was excellent! most tables were really well mixed and the leaders were able to choose where they ought to sit based on their relationships with students. really good!

I reserved some leaders for photos and to help distribute candy/frosting and then I explained the purpose - to learn a story about Jesus and then retell it was gingerbread materials. Each group was given a different story which they first read aloud, then talked about for a few minutes. I think the competitive nature of the event took over here and some groups didn't do diligence in reading the story or talking about it. I should have given each group a few minutes before I released the supplies - next time!

Then there was about 50 minutes of activity as each group created their dioramas. I played Christmas music and used the microphone to add a few icebreaker questions to the evening.

Then we placed all the stories for display, cleaned up and had each group share their story, and how it might be relevant for someone today. this instruction was on their instruction sheet, but many groups hadn't really discussed how the story might apply, so I put students on the spot and drew out answers as they showed off their diorama.

I was surprised how little our kids knew these stories (all of which are basic Jesus stories) and how difficult it was for some groups to discover how the story could be reapplied into today's life. BUT it was such a good exercise that I allowed it to persist, taking up the rest of our evening. It was an excellent end to the evening.

Today, the day after, I setup the dioramas in our church library with simple description of each story and invited people to try to match the stories with the dioramas. I hope that as staff and parents gather this week they'll enjoy our gingerbread sets as much as we did!

Christmas Gifts

Last night at youth group our students were amazing. They love service projects. (I know this is true, I say it often, I think of it often, but it doesn't always permeate everything I do.) Last night our students met at church and pooled money, then went to Target and purchased gifts for residents of the Handicapped Development Center.

There are few traditions that haven't changed since I arrived here last May, but this tradition is golden! One of our adult leaders works at West High School and every year they sponsor gifts to residents of the HDC. Our leader takes a few of those names and we spend one youth group night buying gifts. The students really responded well in numbers and in support.

Since we were traveling away from the building, we gathered in the narthex (front lobby) instead of the youth room. Our church is quite large, and fortunately has several large gathering spaces, but I thought it would be much easier for adults and for us as we added late kids, if we just began in the front gathering area. After a few minutes of mingling, I asked everyone to get into a large circle and we played Jello. It's a sweet game, lots of silliness, lots of kids acting crazy and making each other laugh with goofy actions, and we play it several times a year so most of the students are familiar with it. Actually it's the type of game that I always keep in my back pocket, just in case we need to burn 10-30 minutes and know that we'll be doing something fun. This night though, it was easy simple and we didn't play it in full, just enough to get the energy up.

After a few minutes of the game, I asked the kids to break into groups according to their age (just like house groups). We had few seniors so I recruited a few freshman to join their group, which was a great fit! I had asked them each to bring a little extra money to contribute, and once they were in groups I distributed leaders and began to give instructions: pool your money, look at the description of the person you're buying for, and then head out.

Since this was a traditional event with many of the leaders knowing the basics the simple instructions worked out great. We had an abundance of leaders, and several drivers that I recruited that ended up riding along just for fun. But you could tell that everyone was involved and interested the entire time. Each group pooled between $75-$150 and the church chipped in $20 for each group. That meant the kids could really get some great gifts and could really feel good about their ability to help. Having the extra leaders is also great because many of them helped with the cash flow!

Once we returned to church we headed downstairs where wrapping stations were set up and kids wrapped all their gifts. I had meant to have kids share what they bought with each other, but one group was slow getting back and so we didn't really have that opportunity. Instead we sang some Christmas carols and enjoyed an easy evening of hanging out. It was great!

Senior Faith Stories

Last night at youth group one of our students rocked world with her faith story. She was honest, vulnerable, and told her story of tragedy and redemption like she's been doing it for years. I met with her during the week to hear the story, give some feedback and guide her towards to aspects that would really connect with the rest of our students. Immediately I knew that her story should change our evening, and would give a lot of students deep conversations that they crave. My favorite part of hearing her prep her story was that looking across that table she said, I really hope a few of the other girls in our group hear what I'm saying and don't follow my path. That's the right attitude to have about sharing, she wanted her story to mean something and it did.

I reshaped the evening to allow more time for the great senior story and conversation afterwards. I also planned a game called "don't break the chain" to begin the evening... which was a huge flop. The idea of the game was that these cards each had an unusual action on them like "bark like dog, dance the chicken dance..." and I had hoped that by playing with them like a name game would be really fun. Unfortunately we had far too many students to play like a name game and we abandoned the game after a valiant effort.

We rearranged our evening so that the senior faith story would be central, so after our failed ice breaker we headed back to the youth room and I introduced our senior. After she shared, I asked a few followup questions (things that I thought other students may be wondering) and at one point as she was crying I went and stood next to her to comfort her. When she was finished I asked adult leaders to come forward to the center of the room and I paired them up and assigned grade levels to each pair. Our house groups are loosely divided by grade, so I thought they'd have the best conversations in these groups. I did allow students to change groups if they felt it would be better for them, and several between junior and sophomore did switch groups.

Our small group questions were all about hope, which was a great conversation to have following the faith story. I should have made a broad announcement to have small group leaders debrief from the story first, but I forgot. I did catch 3 of the 4 groups with those instructions and it seemed debriefing from the story was really good before reading the passage (Romans 8:31-39) and talking about hope.

Picture Madlibs

Last night at youth group we dove into some creative activities by playing picture madlibs. It was a great way to build on the past few weeks of energy, incorporate new people, and spend an evening with doing more artistic activity rather than being physically active. It required a little preparation, but was well worth the laughter and fun.

A few weeks ago during our house groups I challenged each group to submitted 30 picture poses (a list I had provided). Those poses were mostly adjectives or short phrases (just winning the lottery, smart, annoyed, acting like a dinosaur, on a roller coaster...). I've been sifting through the photos in the last two weeks trying to match the pose to the words and deciding which pictures were the best to use. Then I pulled out pictures in groups of 10 to create a crazy word list, which corresponded to a powerpoint slide show of the 10 pictures. Of course, all of this was unknown for our students.

So last night, after a warm-up game of reverse charades, I divided the group into 8 teams (because I had 8 slideshows). The simple instructions were to write a story that included all 10 words/phrases in order. The story needed to have at least 10 sentences and each team was given a name (tigers, coffee cups, spacemen...) that was also to be included in the story as a theme somehow. The groups were given 15 minutes, then reported back to the youth room where I had setup the projector. As each group read their story aloud, I asked them to pause each time they used one of the provided words and I showed the next photo.

Part of the success of the game was the unknown: kids had no idea that I was going to use the photos, or what photo would come next. The stories were clever, and though some had plot, many would have been flops if it had not been for the funny pictures associated with them. The whole experience took about 30-35 minutes. I transitioned into small groups by reading the Bible story that we were about to study as a madlib with about 25 of the best photos included in the story. This part was just okay, I think it was too silly to actually jump-start conversation and I think people were too distracted by the photos to hear the story.

Small groups studied the passage of Jesus healing the demoniac in Luke 8:26-39. It's a passage that can go lots of ways. You can talk about chains, or additions, or encountering Jesus. Unfortunately I think the silliness of madlibs and some unclear setup by me, made the Bible study a little disjointed. I think small groups work better when I spend the first few minutes getting everyone really into the study by opening up the topics. Leaders seem to have a better time thinking of their own questions and the conversations are smoother. Even with 25 minutes last night there were still kids wishing they had more time in Bible study.

Other notes about the evening:
Two small groups used our booths in the youth room and decided afterwards that we'll have to install some more barriers or noise eating materials in the room because it was difficult to concentrate. I think the problem was that one group was laughing a lot as they shared and the other was quite serious. Hopefully we'll be able to fix this issue before too long and we'll have ideal small group spaces!

Edible Racers

Last night at youth group we hosted our second annual burrito car races, though to be fair, they were actually edible racers because we used corn dogs and taquitos instead of actual burritos. In my estimation it was one of hte best packaged evenings I've had in a long time. it seemed that everything that was planned went over well and that the theme of the evening came out crystal clear. That theme was how we grow and change our faith to adapt to life. call it spiritual maturity, or living in righteousness, encouraging each other, it was about having a faith that lasts.

We started the evening unconventionally. The room was setup in a circle rather than auditorium style, and we didn't do an ice breaker. The circle setup made the group feel small because they were separated into two halves, even with 45 people, it still felt smaller. The lack of ice breaker didn't really hurt anything, but we did do an warm up question (sharing how our parents were crazy) telling to our neighbors and then sharing with the large group.

Instead of our normal ice breaker game, we began with a small talk from me about training wheels and growing up. That led into the schedule for the evening beautifully as I described how each part of the evening played off the theme (making care packages for college students would help others when they needed it, the modifications of the burrito cars would be turned into analogies later).

The college care packages were brilliant. We tested a few of these ideas in weeks leading up to the evening, and here's what we found. First, we wanted to do it cheaply. there were 68 college students to send to, we couldn't be spending $10 each to stuff and mail a box of candy. So we contacted to post office and found out that some candy can be shipped in envelopes and mailed quite inexpensively. Smarties, peppermints, lifesavers, pop rocks, butterscotch, jolly rancher sticks, and star bursts are all good for the mail. Second, we wanted to tell our college students something important. So we stuffed each envelope with a half sheet flyer inviting them to two gatherings around the holidays. Third, we wanted them to be personal. Each envelop was stuffed with a card as well upon which we glued (with glue dots) the candy to and then students wrote notes on the card to each person and hand addressed each envelope. It didn't take more than 30 minutes to get through all the care envelopes, licked and sealed with special notes. Many students wrote lengthy notes to big brothers and sisters or friends, and many also mentioned their excitement to receive one while they are at college.

Next we gave students 20 minutes to construct, test, decorate and engineer their race cars. We provided supplies and a sample, then let the kids go to work with one special request: while they worked they needed to think of some analogies for how this race car or this experience is like faith. Last year when we did this event we used screws, nuts and washers to construct the cars and used tea-light candles as wheels. this year we've improved the process and made it considerably cheaper and more edible. we used the cheap walmart oreo cookies for wheels by drilling a hole in the center (they have an impression in the middle, which made it easy. We also used wooden skewers for the axles, breaking each in half for before inserting in the race car (which was pre-drilled with two holes for the axles). and finally, we used spice drops as hub caps. They don't even need to be drilled, but adjusted once skewered so that they keep the car running straight.

Before the race, students gathered in the youth room to share their favorite analogies, here is some of what they came up with:

1. God keeps us rolling
2. you can have help from your friends, but ultimately your faith is your responsibility and you have to own it
3. The freezer is like God, the more time you spend away from God the weaker you are
4. ingredients are sticky like faith is stuck to us even when we try to ignore it, it stays with you
5. each car was unique and specially hand crafted just like us
6. if we fall of the course, someone (like God) will catch us before we are destroyed
7. our faith is never complete, hard to say that it's ever really final or perfect
8. It doesn't matter if you finish the race first, at least you're trying
9. a leader might help you create your car, or give you inspiration for a better design or understanding

After our tournament style race, we sung and prayed. I read Hebrews 5:11-14 and recapped the theme. it was a great night!

House Groups

Last night at youth group we met in house groups. This was our second attempt to gather in each others' houses in lieu of meeting at church. We kept the same house groups and leaders, but 3 of the 4 groups changed houses. Each house group is meant to be a grade level, but there are a few students who feel more connected to other grades, so I've openly allowed them to switch groups if they want to.

The week prior to house groups I send home a postcard to each person, reminding/inviting them to the house group. It has a map and description of the evening on the postcard, and of course each card is color-coded for the grade level. The four house group hosts are usually easy to find, but this week I felt I needed to help our freshman group so I offered to host it at my house.

Of course each house group has several capable leaders, great leaders in fact! Most of the groups have a musical person in the group who volunteers to play guitar, and I've arranged the ice breaker games, Bible study, and other activities in advance, putting all supplies and resources in a bag for each house group.

Since I was the host, I tried to be a host-like as possible. I allowed the other leaders to lead and participated when I needed to, but also excused myself from the group when needed as well. Actually being a host was a lot of fun, so hard to keep my mouth shut, but really fun.

The hard part of house groups is that I essentially create 4 ice breakers each week, because the house groups are all so different in number and dynamic. But this week I chose a few board games, and I think they all worked out pretty well. My house group played the game of things, two house groups played a game called Kalimaat, and the other group played a game called the perfect present. All the games were good and we will probably just flip flop games next time.

The Bible study was good to hear and be a part of. Philippians 1:1-11 is an encouraging section that has all kinds of options to talk about joy or happiness, and amazing acts of love. In my house group the leaders each took a portion of the evening to lead, so one person led the game, anther the Bible study and a third led the picture poses. It was a great strategy (one I had hoped for when we assigned leaders) but it was a little difficult because no one was moving things along.

The last part of the evening was called picture poses. each group was given a camera and asked to take 30 pictures of their group posing in different ways. These were all mostly silly (embarassed, hungry, just spotted a celebrity) but the kids really responded well and LOVED taking photos together. The goal of the game was that a judge (like myself) would be able to look at the photo and guess correctly the pose, but it was more difficult than it seemed!

Halloween

Last night at youth group we played clue. not 'murder mystery' clue like you might see in a movie. Not 'how to host a murder' clue like you might buy in a dinner party box. More like the board game of clue, supersized into a run around the church at night kind of game.

Halloween is a difficult evening as a teenager and as a youth minister. I've led evenings and afternoon events where we collect canned goods, but I'm vehemently opposed to canceling youth group in order to let kids live into indecisions which could possibly turn into bad decisions on an evening of masks, unsupervised activity, and darkness. Instead. I'm really interested in creating an exciting alternative that allows teens to make a positive choice about being together. So last year I created a game for our students that was a great success, this year we repeated it with similar success.

I don't like to repeat activities in identical form, but occasionally there are situations that warrant a total repeat: the strange quad cities halloween traditions being one (last year all kids in bettendorf were trick or treating, this year it was all davenport kids). this year and last year were almost identical replicas of each other. many different kids, slightly different feel, still lots of scaring, and still a lot of fun.

Here's how my game works. First, I chose 8 suspects (sponge bob, our senior pastor, a cartoon bat...), 8 weapons (hymnals, guitar strings, sharp pencils...), and 16 locations in our church (library, kitchen, my office...) to make my own board game about who smashed the pumpkin that can be played by small groups all over the church at the same time. Then I made each of them into cards about 3" by 3" and a simple score card. Then I placed a single candle in each of the rooms, got a bunch of kids together, grouped them into small groups, and had them play clue. Essentially on their turn, one person chose a room, the group traveled there, they made an accusation, then they rolled a dice to determine the next person to take a turn.

To make the game a little more fun, we also had two people dressed in costume running around the church scaring and tagging groups as they traveled. once tagged groups reported to me in the fellowship hall where they had to preform a stunt in order to return to the game. add in some black lights, dark rooms, and some silliness and you have a winner of an evening.

We won't likely repeat this activity next year, there's no reason to tire it out. but we began the evening with a quick conversation about reformations (obviously as Lutheran we're building off of the reformation day celebrated the same day). Unfortunately the mixture of costumes and the anticipation of the evening meant that there was little interest in the conversation and tons of chatter. We also didn't really have an ice breaker, so our new students didn't have a chance to get comfortable and get to know each other. An ice breaker would have helped calm the evening and allow a decent conversation as well... so next time... definitely an ice breaker!

Bright as a Black Light

Last night at youth group we lit up the youth room with black lights to show how God sees the world. it was brilliant! the evening schedule could have been a little tighter, but overall it was a memorable evening.

To begin with this evening took some major setup. In our large youth room we (one of my favorite pastors - Katy and I) installed black lights in the ceiling of the room. Since we have a hanging tile ceiling, the simple way was just to pull an extension cord up one wall and into the empty space above the ceiling. Then we attached a power strip and from the center of the room fanned out a few smaller extension cords, which then attached to the lights. I drilled a few holes in the ceiling tiles and bolted in the lights. It's simple and crude, but effective. The lights turn on when we plug in the extension cord, which is conveniently hidden by a pipe along one wall, and all the cords are hidden from view, just leaving the fixtures. (We also have Japanese lanterns hung in the room using this same method).

For our space we used 6 black lights, which provided plenty of light. I thought that black lights would be best purchased from a Halloween store and had been waiting just for this time of year to do this event, but as it turns out, Walmart sells them much cheaper and year round. For only $10 a light, the whole room redecoration, plus extension cords cost less than $80! The key to black lights is to make sure they are centered in the room so that the light is between people and reduces shadows. I also spent the afternoon texting some students to wear neon colors, which they thought was just a riot because they had no idea about the black lights.

As we began our evening I remember kids coming in just a tad later than usual. At 6:30 when we began I think there were just a handful of kids dotting the carpet monster, but at 6:40 there was a mass of students like normal. (Perhaps it was the green bay game keeping people glued to TV.) The first 10 minutes is always a gathering time, exactly for this reason. It gives our students a chance to settle in, our leaders a chance to space themselves out around the room and engage students, and it gives us all an opportunity to greet students who walk in late without interrupting a game. During this time I like to throw around questions to students. Sometimes I'll just stand in the middle of the room and announce questions, inviting kids to share their answers with neighbors. Sometimes I like to use an ice breaker ball.

Some students had already noticed the black light fixtures by 6:40, so at 6:40 as I overview-ed the schedule I turned off the lights and turned on the black lights. Tons of energy from these lights. Students loved them! Of course, there's just something about black lights.

Like usual, we then left the youth head quarters and stepped into the fellowship hall to play a game called the bus game. Not knowing the size of our group each night, I'm always left wondering how much to setup ahead of time. This game for instance just uses chairs, one per person setup in rows like you're riding on a bus. But if I setup too many chairs, it seems disappointing. too few chairs and I'm still scrambling. So this week I didn't setup at all. We walked into the fellowship hall and I had instructed each student to grab a chair and make rows facing the same direction. This strategy backfired completely! as soon as kids came in they made two long rows and it didn't matter how much I explained, they were committed to long rows... whatever. it worked out fine then just to have kids spin their chairs 90 degrees and suddenly everyone faced the correct direction.

I tweaked the rules to the bus game for this evening by making two buses! super fun! each bus had 14 rows of chairs (each row just a row of two chairs). And I made the two buses face opposite directions so that it was clear that there were two buses. The game is a basic game of tag, but like elbow tag, students scoot into the chairs, pushing the occupants over one seat and then freeing a person to run and continue to be chased. For the two bus variety, I kept runners at the same bus, so that there was always two people running around each bus, to keep it less confusing. Then we made up three rules, which I would call out at random times, to keep the game moving and a little crazy. BUS STOP meant that everyone had to change buses (and seat partners). FIRE DRILL meant that everyone had to stand up and run around their bus in a complete circle before sitting down. ROSA PARKS meant that everyone had to move forward at least 3 rows (the front rows having to move backwards). Added to the excitement, the two chasers and two people being chased didn't have to follow the rules, and just picked someplace to sit. It guaranteed new chasers each time and added confusion to the room. Once everyone was seated, the 4 left over people still standing were told who was chasing who and on which bus and the game was off again. It was great and lasted 20 minutes and could have gone longer without getting too tired.

Next we played a game called electricity, which was a total bust. I hesitate to even mention it, but here's what I did wrong: I didn't make the rules clear enough to begin with, I didn't separate the groups effectively (one group only had 6 people, another 12), and I didn't make it fair. it was a bust, not much else to say, I'll have to keep thinking through the game in order to make it work with a group our size... but suffice it to say we should have just saved these 10 minutes for later.

After Electricity, everyone was seated in their small groups and introduced themselves to each other. My mistake here again. They needed to know who was in each group, but their small group starter was also a name identifier, and so we spoiled a little of the small group time later.

Having every group on the floor of the fellowship hall, sitting in loose circles, I presented the large group topic (a Bible story and conversation) about Nicodemus. I think this was strong, but in the middle of the talk I got off track talking about "born again." this is a great story to integrate integrity and the dark/light ideas because John 3 contains both Nicodemus' lack of integrity (coming to Jesus at night) and Jesus' strong words about light and dark, surrounding something that everyone knows (John 3:16). It was a good launching point for conversations.

I probably should have just invited the groups to stay put and continue their conversations in small group, but the darn fellowship hall is so noisy that I wanted to give them a little space. groups moved about 20-40 feet apart, still in the same room, and I distributed supplies to each group leader (which included a sharpie and a foam-core person that was to be written on).

During small groups (which all sounded pretty deep and I've received some good feedback about) each student wrote down their name and drew or wrote things that they were ashamed of (things done in the dark). I gave each group 30 minutes, which was a long time for one group, but the other groups seemed fine, then we reconvened in the youth HQ for our closing worship.

Closing worship was a 45 minute set including faith story by high school senior, confession/forgiveness by Pastor Katy, experiential moment by Katy and I involving black lights and glow paint, special music, and lots of singing. It was a good experience all together. The black light experience was a great time to say how God sees us not with the shame that we had written on the foam core, but as lights in the world (symbolized by the glow paint that we drew with on top of the foam core). Light overpowers darkness. it was a theme that was powerfully present in the black lights!

The faith story concluded the service, and it was long, but good. Our student did a fabulous job of being transparent about his own darkness and depression and the path that he walked towards the light. It was long, like 25 minutes long, which meant that we didn't finish the evening with a last song or prayer, but his talk was too good to wrap up early.

Little Acts of Love

Last night at youth group we focused on serving others with little acts of love. I was a little over planned because it's difficult to determine the length of service projects(some over planning is good, but I was WAY over planned last night). You just can't tell kids that they should stop their service project midstream, but you can't have kids waiting around staring at the ceiling if they get finished early.

To begin the evening I introduced an Ice Breaker ball (which was useful later as part of our group made their own ice breaker ball) and we welcomed kids into the evening. When I use an ice breaker ball, or question book, I generally pose the question the one individual loud enough for everyone to hear. Then I allow kids to talk with neighbors for about a minute as they discuss and shout out their answers. Then I readdress the original student and let them share their answer and why. It's a good method because everyone seems to get involved but there's also a clear pattern and leadership to the ice breaker. I also get a chance to rope in kids who are leaders and kids on the fringe because I choose who gets the ball/question next. Of course we also have a unique room and a large group where sitting in a circle isn't always helpful.

Then we played some great ice breaker games. The purpose of the games was to get our kids comfortable with each other and develop some partnerships that would endure all night. For the games last night, I was intention about creating a pair a people who would be together for the duration of the evening. I love to pair up kids with each other, and I've been thinking about this strategy for a while and I've settled on it as a primary strategy for our group for a few reasons. First, it gives them some one to connect with that they can turn to in moments of confusion, share a laugh with, and most importantly someone who they can reconnect with in future weeks. Second, it makes getting into small groups easier. Regardless of the craziness of the games, or the labor of the service project, when the kids find themselves in small groups, this partner becomes a lifeline to vulnerability that they otherwise may or may not have in our random small groups each night. And Third, games can always be heightened by adding a partner who has to cooperate with you. It's great to watch kids play ultimate frisbee, but if you tie two kids together and watch them play, they learn different things, they play different ways, and they laugh harder together.

We began with Screaming Yellow Zonkers (or elbow tag, as the kids like to call it). This is a standard game, so I upped the energy by turning it into a fast-elimination game. First, I gave each runner only 5 seconds to find their next partner while being chased, this eliminated the desire of our more athletic kids who like to just run and run, taunting the slower kids when being chased. IF someone was just running around I would start counting, ensuring that they picked a new elbow and passed on the game. I also asked each partner to sit down after someone latched onto them turning the game into an elimination game. It created obstacles on the floor (which was fun), and it ensured that every person got to be a runner. The last person running who had no elbows left to attach to, I called out and let them be the chaser on the next round. The game was a great game, lasted about 10 minutes and would have been better if we had music playing.

After the final round of elbow tag I felt kids were sufficiently mixed up, they had each changed partners several times so I announced that their current partner was going to be their partner for the rest of the evening. And then we played a game called head-foot. Organizing kids into two concentric circles with one partner standing in each circle, I instructed the circles to rotate opposite directions. This is a good way to play many games as it ensures that partners never quite know where their partner is at all times and makes the center of the circle a chaotic zone once something is called out and partners are finding each other. During this game I used the mic to call out two body parts (head-foot) and partners raced to find each other and then connect the two parts, the last partners to find each other are called out. It's a good game, but it's hard to stop, so we played for about 15-20 minutes until our final partners won.

Next we introduced 4 little acts of love that we were going to be doing all night, and allowed students (partners) to choose where they would serve. Groups had about 45 minutes to complete their project, each group had specific leaders with instructions and for groups where there was less to do I started them with a question or two to get to know each other. Finding service projects to do at 6:30 on a Sunday is difficult, but all four of these were winners:

• One group cut out preschool shapes. Our preschool is always needing volunteers to simply cut out shapes that will eventually be glued together by the kids. we had a team of 6 sitting around a table having great conversation with each other.
• One group used mod-podge to create prayer cubes. This is a left over craft from a spring family event. During that event families made prayer cubes for dinner, but for our youth we used symbols that represented the different camp-song-prayers to glue onto the cubes. This group just jumped right into the activity, which was good because there is some dry-time involved, but would have probably been better if leadership had gathered the kids and explained everything before they started. This group of 12 each made a cube, and using notecards/key rings wrote out the accompanying prayers so that we can give the cubes as gifts to other youth groups or to camps.
• One group stuffed care bags that our pastors will deliver to shut-ins in our congregation when they visit. These bags are an extension of a preschool project who made leaves/colored turkeys for the bags. Our students decorated the bags, put in special notes, and stuffed other assorted goods into the bags - like fake flowers, fall decorations, prayers... Our group of 15 really got into it and followed instructions having really good conversation about who they were serving and why.
• One group created ice-breaker balls. Using the ball we began our evening with as a template, the group used soccer balls and volley balls with sharpies to write their own ice breaker questions. I provided them with lots of ice-breaker books, which they loved to look through, and led them in a quick discussion at the beginning to help them understand what would be the best types of questions and the purpose of the balls. We made several balls, though few were finished at the end of 45 minutes. some balls were intended for Sunday school classrooms/confirmation small groups, others will be used by our group or given away as gifts to other youth groups. I think we'll use this idea again when we travel to New Orleans this summer because it was so much fun.

We were going to close our evening with a Bible study and regrouping into their small groups, but I changed my mind last second and decided that it would be more helpful to large group debrief the service projects by having each group present and talk about how they served with little acts of love.

We closed with some great worship and a few reminder announcements about summer trip to New Orleans for interested persons.

The Ah Ha Moment

Last night at youth group we were throwing around soft objects and hard questions. The evening was filled with dodgeballs, a great big skit involving rubber chickens, a play dough talk, some small group time and then a closing worship: all of which was centered around integrity.

My favorite part of the evening was the Ah Ha moment in the play dough talk. We had just improvised a skit (with complete silliness) about Daniel and were debriefing what integrity looks like. Then I passed around some play dough containers and began to explain how play dough can help us remember to have integrity.

Students were instructed NOT to open their containers, but the passing out took a little longer than expected and I could hear the ripple of surprise through the crowd as each person opened their container and realized that the play dough inside didn't match the lid on the outside. What gives? they were all asking... which was a perfect moment for the first point in the discussion: that when you have integrity, you're insides match your outsides. Ah Ha!

Other examples that I used with play dough were that play dough changes shape constantly and that it doesn't have the firmness to stand up on it's own (both examples of when we don't have integrity). The small group conversation following was quite deep as kids were asked to share times and places when their own integrity was lacking and when and why they do have strong integrity.

Building on the Daniel and the lions den theme, I also read a verse from 2 Timothy 4:16-17 about what it feels like when we're left to the lions and delivered to safety. We sang Lions by Lost and Found, and had all laid our play dough examples of integrity on the table in the midst of our worship space... what a good way to end a good evening.

Dodgeball also should be explained. I'm not a big fan of super athletic events because it alienates so many kids... but I bought some dodgeballs from Ikea (actually they are soccer pillows) which are the best dodgeballs ever. First, they don't hurt - they are pillows. Second, because they are pillows, they don't go fast or far, which means that the game can be played in close quarters with a lot more intensity. Third, they come in three different colors (black, red and blue) which I use to ramp up the game. during the games last night the three different colors imapcted you in different ways. If you got hit by a red one you switched teams, a black one meant you had to lose a body part (put an arm behind your back or stand on one leg), a blue one meant you had to do 10 pushups... just all kinds of options.

House Groups

Last night at youth group we took a risk! Despite what my marketing-brain was telling me about sustaining momentum, keeping things consistent, not upsetting the fruit basket... blah blah blah... last night we organized our first house group of the year. Instead of meeting at church in our normal way, we split the group into small groups and met all around the cities.

In a normal small group setting, you would identify a group, build a strong commitment to the group and then meet regularly for some extended period of time as you develop deep relationships with each other creating avenues for vulnerability and personal/spiritual care between each other. The end result of that small group process is a group of people who feel closer with each other, and can share openly about God while they navigate the duress of life. Last night was our first toe in the water towards this end. For a change (at least for me) it wasn't about the number of kids, or the energy of the group, or even about control. It was about breaking a huge group of teenagers down into groups for an evening to deepen already existing friendships, hold sacred time spent together, and literally invite each other into their lives. And it was bumpy but great!

What we did:
We broke our group of about 50-60 into small groups based on grade level in school (freshman - seniors). One person from each group was designated as the house host, charged with a welcome environment and some snacks, then our regular leaders were dispatched to each house to serve as leaders. I provided a long-detailed lesson plan which included ice breakers, Bible study, craft/activity, small group picture challenge, and three options to close with (worship books, discussion topics, and additional games). We also communicated like crazy! Facebook invites, church announcements, postcards handed out weeks in advance, a mailing the week before, and an email a few days ahead of time too.

How it worked:

• Across the board, it was good and I'll be excited to do it again. It felt strange for me, but I think the kids thought it was more fun than weird...
• Communication was excellent, there was no one who showed up at church looking for directions (at least not for the first 15 minutes while I was waiting there) and no one took the extra postcards that I had taped to the church doors in case they showed up late.
• Games were good, but ours lasted much longer than intended. perhaps this is because in a house things are a little more relaxed, perhaps because I wasn't leading the directions, forcing everyone to behave and pay attention.
• Bible Study was mixed. the group I attended had a great conversation, mostly branching off the Bible study topic and talking a lot about how to behave towards others (Colossians 4:5). It seems that other groups had a more difficult time connecting the dots and drawing kids out into discussion. This isn't a particularly easy passage to talk about, made more complicated by the lack of Bibles present in the groups
• Activity? what activity? we skipped this one because we didn't have time for it, and I think many other groups were in the same boat. Good to have an extra thing to go to just in case though.
• The picture challenge was great. Horsmaning was a lot of fun, it's relatively new and most students hadn't heard about it but were excited to try it. The pictures will help propel the house groups back to youth group next week.

What I learned:

• Allergies! yikes. though we definitely handled the food allergies, one house group had a major issue with an allergic kid because of the dogs/cats... didn't think about that one ahead of time. They suffered through, but next time we'll have a better plan!
• Leadership! One major risk in this evening was that I was giving control over to the leaders to lead. There would be no youth director pulling us together if the game bombed, or any direction changes if our group was not the expected size or dynamic. I think it became an excellent opportunity for leaders to step up and I think the outcome of our house group evening will be better connections in weeks to come between leaders and kids. It was also difficult for me to do my usual recruiting because I wasn't going to be at every house.
• Preparation! in preparing for the evening I made a huge plan including all kinds of wrinkles, options, and ideas. unfortunately that meant collecting tons of resources ahead of time. and to make matters worse, I had to collect 4 of everything (one for each house group). Next time I'll be mindful to keep it simple and allow the leaders to plan ahead for their own creative inputs.
  

Messy Olympics

Last night at youth group we hosted our second annual messy olympics. This is an evening dedicated to getting messy with the craziest games I can imagine and then pulling it all together with the message of grace.

A few lessons... first, Thank God for Megaphones! It's difficult to host this event outside in September, you never know what the weather will be like and it gets dark about an hour into youth group time, but we tried this year to have the messiest events outside at the very beginning of the evening, which worked well. Outside also creates other problems like sound, containment, weather and lighting, but staying outside for 45 minutes was a great decision. Second, I was trying really hard to be messy without being wasteful. it's a challenge from my senior pastor, and I was trying to respect food. so in 3 games we wasted food, 2 games we didn't use food (alphabet soup was supposed to be food free), and 2 games we ate food. This was just okay, it's much easier to be wasteful, but I think we can even do with less food next time.

Egg Head (aka Egg Roulette) kids whack an egg over each others head, raw egg and you're out, hard boiled egg and you stay in. we played three rounds and on the third round everyone was given a raw egg except one person, so that there was one winner. First thing we did was get kids in a circle and have them pair up, then we passed out eggs and had them smash each other around the circle. this worked okay, but we had 4 eggs in the bowl for two people to increase the randomness (it meant that if you knew you had a hard boiled egg you weren't necessarily going to get a raw egg on your head), but it was also confusing for some of the kids... you mean we're both out... I also planned to sort kids into teams at this point, but the game was WAY too exciting and team sorting happened later.

once we formed teams things settled down in a nice pace. we had good games and it was under control for the most part. teams were definitely a good idea because it allowed some kids to watch, some kids to get really messy and everyone to have someone to cheer for.

Cracker Stacker - one team member balanced crackers on their head that were stacked by teammates using honey as glue. 2 minutes was plenty. next time a few more rules (like the crackers have to stay by themselves) would be helpful ahead of time.

Pudding Legs - two kids on the team were given panty hose to put over their heads, one team mate was then blindfolded and had to feed pudding cups to their team through the panty hose. Not a super messy game, but I had the contestants go inside to get ready as I explained the game to the teams, it created lots of excitement and energy, plus the kids got carried away with the pudding cups and a little food fighting ensued.

Jello Blow - two kids from each team came to the middle and took an end of a plastic tube filled with jello, on the whistle they both blew and the loser ended up with jello on their face. this game was mostly a fail. jello was too hard and difficult to blow, and it was too easy to cheat. plus it wasn't very messy. I tried this before hand with a coworker and thought it would go over better.

Then we headed inside to play Alphabet Soup. Teams relay raced to a pool filled with water, plastic fruit, ping pong balls, and rubber ducks, to find golf balls on the bottom with letters written on them. great game because it's reusable, exciting, and messy but not in a way that ruins clothes. of course I wish I hadn't put in the donuts in the water... donut water is gross, and it slowed down the game to a crawl. I also used two of each letter because we had so many teams but that was a little confusing too.

Cotton Nose - one team mate was chosen and then smeared with vasoline on their face. cotton balls were spread on the table and students were given one minute to transfer as many cotton balls into a bowl as possible. it worked okay. vasoline is really messy. I think some teams cheated, but it was fun to watch.

Cheeto face - one team mate was chosen and then smeared with whip cream on their face. cheese balls were spread on the table and students were given one minute to toss cheese balls and get them to stick on the face. hilarious! I wish it was a little more controlled, but it was very funny. whip cream does sting the eyes, and cheese balls are difficult to stick, plus the whip cream slides off fast. next time maybe we'll use shaving cream.

we tied everything together at the end with closing ceremonies. I handed out awards to winners of each competition. purchased from oriental trading the medals are "make your own" so we pre printed them to be game specific... awesome! then I gave a little youth talk about why we do messy olympics. Using Romans 3:23 and Romans 5:6-8 I made the case that we're all messy all the time and God loves us while we are messy. It was beautiful, relevant and a very sticky message.

During our closing worship, we really focused the group into some beautiful silence and then had one of our seniors share her faith story. it was great, all about faith mountain top experiences and why camp and the youth group means so much to her.

Servce Project Rain out

Last night at youth group we were rained out of our initial plan of doing service projects and forced inside to have fun all evening with games and Bible study. Fortunately I was able to plan a little ahead on Sunday morning and things worked out well. Here's what we did and what worked:

We began the evening by having kids decorate a wooden cross with their name as they entered the youth room. This worked out great! it gave kids something to do as they entered the room and the leaders an excuse to talk with kids. A basket of sharpies and some leftover crosses from an event earlier this year were great supplies and easy to pull out. We used these crosses later, which were actually key rings, when we decorated a wall-sized map of our town by placing the crosses wherever we lived.

After a few minutes to gather, I called everyone's attention to a few announcements concerning the next coming weeks and then laid out the plan for the evening. I've always found this helpful for students to know what they'll be doing, what to expect. Then we moved into the fellowship hall and immediately into groups of 10 for an icebreaker called hula head. This wasn't a great transition, I should have waited until everyone got into the room before I told them to get into groups and I could have mingled them up a little more, instead the kids were mostly with their closest friends in big groups of 10 or so. Leaders did a great job of jumping into groups and making sure that there was at least one leader in each group. We played four rounds of hula head, which basically uses hula hoops to pass around the circle without using hands, while all holding hands. Hula hoops over the head, two hoops going in opposite directions, everyone going through the hoops... just silly physical activity with lots of laughter and excitement!

Next we moved to tables and played a game called speed friending. kids were seated at tables in a circle and were paired up with someone across from them. The group got one minute to find as many things in common with their partner, and the most unique things that they had in common, then as the leader at the end of a minute I asked for volunteers to share their most unique items. Everything from favorite episode of their favorite tv show to both playing in a tribute band. The creativity was excellent! after each round I asked the inside circle to move a random number of chairs to their right insuring new partners, names, and new things in common. The chairs and tables were critical for this game. I've done it before with confirmation kids, but without chairs the kids get confused easily about who belongs to who. It also worked well because kids sat down at tables next to their friends, so they were meeting people across the table who they didn't really know.

Next we headed back to the youth room for one of the most dangerous and awesome games in youth ministry: what would you do if... in this game each participant writes a 'what would you do if' statement on a note card, then we pass cards and everyone answers the statement on the back of the card. Finally, after a good shuffling of cards, leaders redistribute cards and answers are read aloud in a special way. the first person reads their 'what would you do if' question, and their neighbor to their right reads the answer on their card. Since the answers are mixed, they end up with some ridiculous statements and answers. my favorite from last night: Q - What would you do if you lived with Ian. A - I would trade it for a cat. The game does have lots of craziness and it's difficult to get kids to stay quiet long enough to hear answers, but the kids eventually pick up on the game and want to hear. It's dangerous because there can be some risky answers or insinuations. But kids are pretty good at recognizing sketchy answers and amending statements so that nothing comes out wrong.

Then we broke into small groups by age group. With a group our size, age groups are important to get into every once in a while, even though we broke the largest age group into two groups. There is a good sense of camaraderie in the ages and I think kids need to see their peers in order to have some conversations. In this small group we began with another ice breaker game which asked kids to pull out a random object from a bag and tell a story about themselves that the object made them think of. I sat with seniors and the game was hilarious. Great stories. That led the group into a conversation about seeing God in everyday life situations which was an awesome conversation to have with our small groups referencing the message translation of Romans 12:1-2). Even with 30 minutes in small group, some of the groups didn't get to the Bible study portion (too long in the stories) which is a little frustrating, but a reality, especially with so many students all still figuring out the rhythm of youth group.

We closed the group with some great singing, prayer and then a short closing about how we see God in our everyday lives. I referenced the map during closing, which was now decorated with crosses for everywhere the kids lived. The visual of the crosses all around the city is a powerful reminder of how we do see God in everyday life. Not bad for a rainout plan that I made a few hours before youth group :)

In the beginning...

Last night at youth group we began the season with a huge change: we dropped the evening meal at the beginning, which dramatically changed the gathering atmosphere. There is still going to be some major adjustment in our group to this big change, but after the first night, I can tell that it's going to be a nice change. In my opinion there were lots of positives: we didn't have to collect $, we gathered in our youth space which is intimate and inviting rather than the large and ugly fellowship hall, we were able to setup games in the fellowship hall before hand, kids ate with their families, and we began earlier giving us more time. There were some negatives: we didn't open the evening with a camp-style prayer, the snack was awesome but few ate because they had just eaten dinner with families, and the beginning was a little strange while we gathered kids for 5-10 minutes in the youth room. We'll work out those things in the upcoming weeks though and I think the change will do us well!

We began the evening with quick introductions about SNL, an overview of the evening and then we introduced leaders (since sometimes our leaders look a little like our students - young adults as they are). There were definitely some giggles when one leader said they wanted to ride the 'weiner mobile', otherwise, it was just a good chance for kids to hear and see the adult presence and give a chance for Liz (lacey's helper) to be introduced. Then we proceeded into the fellowship hall for a few ice breaker games: clump it up, jelly bean swap, and can-can-bump.

Clump it up: a simple game that asked kids to mingle, then I would shout a number and a few questions. Kids found that number of people to form a group and then sat down and answered questions like - your hardest class, farthest away from home, school, grade... when I had kids get into groups of three I asked them to form pyramids and then they had to race across the floor. That was excellent, no one got hurt, and there was a lot of fun in the challenge. we concluded the game by making lines of people, and then without talking having to sort themselves according to birthdays and then alphabetically by middle name. All of these games were great, as they encouraged kids to include one another, meet others, and have some small experiences to remember and draw on throughout the rest of the year. I imagine conversations between kids later in the year: "I think I know you, yeah we were in the same pyramid when we raced." "That's right, I thought we were going to die!"

Jelly Bean Swap: we distributed cups filled with skittles and m&ms instructing kids to trade candy until they had collected all the same color and candy. Simple rules included candy always had to be traded one-to-one and each trade had to accompany a new piece of information about the other person. The great part of the game was that kids were so excited to be trading candy, and it forced kids into new relationships as they overcame their fears about getting to know each other in pursuit of collecting the right candy. This game worked well for our group because at the end of the game everyone can eat candy and watch the next game, which was played in rounds so that everyone got a turn.

Can-can-bump: I thought going into the night that this game might flop, and I was surprised that it was so incredible. It might have been the sugar-high, but our kids loved trying to push eachother into the trash can. Again, first night, so we had a game with very simple rules. Called to the middle in groups according to gender and age (or whatever I felt like) kids held hands around the trash can, then tried to pull their friends into the middle and try to touch the trash can or pull friends over the can so that their hands passed over the can and they were called out. They were also called out if they broke hands at any point. Tons of silliness. The kids really enjoyed the strength and strategy of the game. They cheered each other on, and my favorite part of the game: when the freshman girls couldn't seem to get anyone out, mostly just moving in a circle, the rest of the room spontaneously started singing ring-around-the-rosy. The game was good natured, fun to watch, and great for a group as big as ours.

After our ice breakers we went back to the youth room for a short talk. I explained that this was our space to take care of and then launched into a more serious discussion about what makes church community different than other communities: that we are built on forgiveness because we are all outsiders. We talked about John 3:16-17, our own sinfulness, and used an illustration about all of us being included because no one is perfect. Then we broke into small groups. spread out and had great conversations. We definitely need a better way to break into small groups, mostly because I don't want it to be based on where you sit every night, but for the first night it was okay.

Small groups were interesting. There was quite a bit of variety in the depth, seriousness, and silliness that was in each group. I forgot to suggest that kids go around the circle as the group began and introduce themselves. Some groups did this anyway, some not and that was probably a determining factor in the attitudes.

We concluded with ukulele worship. Myself, another leader and a student led the group with our ukes, but we also had a student guitar player and someone else on hand drums. I was nervous about the mixture, but we sounded good and with so many people in the room, I was grateful for the extra sound from the guitar. As students reentered the youth room they were invited to the center table. Candles and markers sat on the paper covered-table and all were invited to write down places that they've been excluded. It was a great gathering tool that we'll have to use again, and great place to point our eyes to as we worshiped.

My favorite moment in the evening was at the conclusion. Following one song, my ukulele playing student leaned over to me and asked if he could say something. This young man is still a little on the fringe, he's a freshman, and I'm pretty sure the only reason that he showed up was because I asked him to come play uke with me... so the request was surprising to say the least, but I granted it, got everyone's attention and this young man spoke great God words. He encouraged us to think about 9-11 and be mindful of those families in our prayers. To which I asked him to lead us in prayer, and he did. He prayed a beautiful, eloquent prayer that wove together the theme of our inclusive night, 9-11, and what it means to love God. It was a beautiful moment of spirit in our community where God spoke to and through him into our group. A great illustration about what it means to be included!

Mission Trip Recap

A week after our trip returned I see a different group of kids at our church. They are overjoyed to be part of life here at St. Paul. Students who were friends are bringing parents to worship, there are rows of students sitting together each week, there are group leaders getting mobbed after church with hugs, and oh the facebook chatter that I see! It's amazing what God has done with our group.

Because of this blog, I've been reflecting about what made this trip so special and impactful. In my history of youth trips, this wasn't the most spiritual, it didn't have the best service components, it wasn't the best destination, but it was transformational for our group and one of my favorite trips for sure! Here are some of my conclusions, specifically, 7 things that we did to make this trip such a success:

1. Student Recruitment. I would call this, the importance of invitation. Many of our students said during the week they didn't want to come on this trip initially, or even the days leading up to the trip. In reality, if I had given them an option to back out just before the trip, more than half of them probably would've backed out. There were so many students on this trip because they each received a personal invitation from me, and at one point or another were convinced to say yes. For some students it was the lure of 6 flags, others it was a week away from their house, or a week of doing service project to complete service hours for school, and for others, it was simply because we had a relationships that they said yes. I know that regardless of the why, powerful things happen when you give God your time. The yes you say to the group (or to Andy) becomes a yes to God's work, a yes to a deeper relationship with God, and a yes to our next event Bible study or small group. This year all those yeses will be a powerful influence as students expand their service to our community and congregation.

2. Family and work groups. The most common question in any youth event is "who is coming?" Unfortunately that question determines the attitude coming into a trip and often makes the decision about attending the trip in general. to complicate this issue, "who will I be with" becomes a second question asked by students once on the trip. They want the security of their friends throughout the trip. Caving into their wants though can really spoil the trip, so for our trip we created two types of small groups. One called the family group, a comfortable group for the students where they and their friends were paired with a leader who would look out for them, share experiences, and become their go-to leader when problems happen. The second group we created was the working crew. This was more of a challenge group that served all week together and purposely mixed ages, genders, schools and abilities. The work crew allowed the evening family groups to share a wide range of experiences during evening check-in times, and prevented students from seeing friends too much. I often see friendships develop in the most unusual circumstances in the work groups and consequently see those friendships integrate new people into the group very quickly.

3. Bus Ride Games. The bus ride was incredible for students. I've taken a lot of trips with minivans adn 15 passengers, but the bus is the best! The microphone allowed me to lead the group in games, reflections, ice breakers, and crystal clear instructions. For our first bus ride, not a single person knew everyone's name on the bus, which is both scary and a little intimidating for our students, but we started by sitting in our family groups, which meant sitting with people we knew well, in our comfort zone. And after about 2 hours, we stopped for a short break and randomized the seating. I had students line up alphabetically by first name, another time it was by birthdate, another time it was with someone you don't know. We used the bus to deepen our friendships and break the ice. Each time we sat down with new people we shared names and a whole slew of ice breaker questions with the microphone. At one point I passed the mic around and let the kids ask would you rather questions from a book, another time we shared jokes. We also played games like telestrations, shared a tackle box filled with friendship bracelet string, and played two truths and a lie. We used the bus to develop relationships that really affected the way that our group got to know each other and process the trip.

4. The Thank You Circle. On Wednesday night I introduced a group process time called the thank you circle. In lieu of a normal family time, our group sat in a circle (all 49 of us) and spent an hour telling each other what we meant to each other, thanking individuals for the ways they reached out to us, and loving each other through our words. It might seem that Wednesday is too early to do something so emotionally charged, but for this group, it was time. the emotions were bubbling already and I was truthfully worried that our Thursday night would be too much if we didn't diffuse a little of the emotion. It worked so well. The thank you circle allowed our kids to process the trip and their relationships, so that Thursday's work day and evening foot washing was much more spiritually focused. It was awesome!

5. Hug Circle.The hug circle was new to me but it's a camp shalom tradition and it was so beautiful that we'll do it forever. We got into a giant circle and beginning with one person they started walking around circle giving hugs to each person. As soon as they hugged someone, that person to join them creating kind of a chain of hugs. This allowed each person to speak words to each other, thank you's, inside jokes, and good byes. Especially on Thursday night, after such an emotional ride with the foot washing, this was the conclusion that we needed to solidify our emotions and prepare for our journey home.

6. The last reflection. On the way home we processed on the bus right and that made big difference for the group, but what really helped us reflect on the trip was when we stopped at a park and spent about 90 minutes remembering each day. I had ordered pizza and we just sat around picnic tables in a large group to remember every single day. I began each day by giving a few highlights about what we did as a group and what might jog different memories, and then the kids shared with the large group what they remembered. Their stories reminded others of stories, it was a beautiful mixture of laughter, tears, and emotion. The words they used to share memories stick in my head and I'm sure crystallized their memory of the trip better as well.

7. Story Sharing. The final conclusion to our trip was a time of story sharing. As soon as we got home, we unloaded the bus and walked into the sanctuary to share raw stories with parents, family, and congregation members. They weren't necessarily the most spiritual, or be most eloquently packaged, but it went well. It gave parents some talking points with their kids, it showed the congregation how much energy and life we had during the week, and I think most of all, it started the very important step towards sharing this incredible God-adventure with the normal life. Two days later we met at church at 11:00 for worship and all together we stood up and acknowledge their mission trip with a few stories shared. It was a great conclusion to a great trip.

My final reflection about the trip, something I don't want to forget... One of my students that I worked with all week said something to me on Thursday night that I'll never forget and will be words I speak to other leaders when I remind them about the holy call to youth ministry. After sharing with her how grateful I was to have worked with her all week and that I had chosen her to be my work crew because I just really enjoy being around her, I told her that she was one of my favorite students. She responded by saying that I treat everyone like they're my favorite and that it must be hard, but she really appreciates it.  And she was right. I want every student in my group, every person that walks through the door, to feel like they are my favorite student/person. It is hard, there are a lot of hard-to-love people but I think that's one element of my ministry that makes me a good youth minister, it's deeply embedded in my personal theology. I think everyone deserves to feel like they are a favorite, I think it's how God wants us to feel because it empowers us to be more confident, generous, and joyful. 

Summer Stretch

 Last week was our week of Summer Stretch. Here's the basic concept: During the week of VBE (it's called VBS at most churches) we typically have students involved in huge numbers, and have need for lots of teenager helpers. Those teenagers are largely recruited by me, and many of them just because each afternoon (after VBE concludes for the day) we run a program called Summer Stretch. The name is hijacked from a Roman Catholic church in Minnesota, but the concept is an original. The idea is to reward those teenagers who helped with VBE by giving them lunch each day, followed by extreme and awesome events like giant slip and slides, water balloon fights, tie dye tshirts and other service projects. The end result is a beautiful mix of students who spend a week of their life helping others, developing a strong community, deepening their faith, and having loads of memorable fun. Here’s a quick synopsis of the week:

The difference between this year and last year was energy. Last year, I think I was the supplier of energy. Everything was new, kids were being added to our group every day, and there was a surprise factor where kids couldn’t wait for the next day and what crazy thing we would dream up next. A year later, a year with strong ministry, lots of involvement, and plenty of crazy events, it’s safe to say the surprise is gone. Instead there was an expectation and a new form of energy that looks a lot like community and feels like the energy is coming from our students.

This year we had 41 participants in our summer stretch, most of them helped with VBE each day and then stayed for the afternoon. 18 of them were incoming 9^th graders! 6 of them weren’t members of our church. And though many of the kids were core participants, many of them will be on our mission trip in a few weeks, there was a sense about the group that everyone belonged and was included in the community.

I’ll use two students as an example. Lisa is new (and it's not her real name). She joined with her parents a month or so ago, and until last week she was definitely an outsider looking in skeptically. This week she brought Sally to the group as a safety blanket, her best friend just in case it was so horrible that she couldn’t stand it. In fact the first day, as soon as they showed up, both girls came to me and asked if they had to stay the whole time. They wanted to leave before they even arrived. However, as the days went on, Lisa and Sally started learning new names, things they had in common with other students. The eventually began to sit next to other students at lunch, they opened up during group discussions, and they made friends with others in our group (who were trying desperately to friend them as well). By Thursday I had forgotten that the two had even come together, they were so integrated into our group. On Friday, they were both connected outside of our group, writing facebook notes to kids in the group about how they would miss them next week and being pressured (invited and strongly encouraged) into getting more involved.

Last night Lisa signed up for our adventure land trip on Thursday. That might not seem like a life-saving, transformational moment on the outside, but in the span of one week, Lisa experienced the power of community wrapped up tightly within her own church. It’s an infectious power at work inside our group as our students vigorously welcome new students and adopt them into our group, invite them into our conversations, and claim them as friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and workers looking for more volunteer opportunities, leadership roles, and spaces in our church. We had a fabulous week: the slip and slide, water balloons, tie dye, hostess scavenger hunt, flying chicken, water guns, relays, serving opportunities, dorky name games, weird stunts, Bible studies, skits, and songs were great tools that framed an experience with God and with each other. Lisa and students like her are all testaments to how beautiful it is when you are doggedly pursued by God’s love manifest in God’s teenage followers! There’s still work to be done with these students, but foundation has been laid and they feel like they are a part of something here at this church like they’ve never felt before!

So what is left to say, but thank God for these awesome servants; for the 7 adults who volunteered to prepare meals, lead discussions, drive vehicles, and get wet for God’s sake; and for the support from the congregation who make weeks like this available for our most vulnerable teenagers.

678 Summer Experience

Last week we started something new. There is a gap at our church that we addressed for our 6, 7, and 8th graders. During the week of VBE (it's called VBS at most churches) we typically have students involved in huge numbers. There were 180 kids,  a handful of adult leaders and about 30 teenagers who were helping/leading. Those 30 teenagers are largely recruited by me, and many of them just because each afternoon (after VBE concludes for the day) we run a program called Summer Stretch. The name is hijacked from a Roman Catholic church in Minnesota, but the concept is an original. The idea is to reward those teenagers who helped with VBE by giving them lunch each day, followed by extreme and awesome events like giant slip and slides, water balloon fights, tie dye tshirts and other service projects. The end result is a beautiful mix of students who spend a week of their life helping others, developing a strong community, deepening their faith, and having loads of memorable fun. However, there's a gap: the kids in 6, 7, and 8th grade. They're just a little young to help with VBE and a little old to participate. So for the first time, in addition to running a super smooth week of Summer Stretch, with my high school kids, I also invented a program for the kids entering 6, 7, and 8th grades called 678 Summer Experience. Here’s a quick synopsis of the week:

At 678 Summer Experience we had 39 different 6, 7, and 8^th graders involved. We also had help from 4 awesome student leaders and 6 other adults during the week.  We began each day at 9:00 am but because many of these students also had older siblings or parents helping with VBE, there were always 8-10 students here at 8:30 am hanging out and helping me setup. Activities during the week included a giant slip and slide, water balloon fight, tie dying t-shirts, visiting residents at Senior Star retirement community, making posters for residents at Senior Star, visiting Kathie Heaps and Bobbie Folsom’s house, a banana scavenger hunt in Vander Veer Park, a donut scavenger hunt around St. Paul, a blindfolded walk around the church campus, and various other games like dodge ball, chicken on a hill, musical squirt guns, super Pictionary and water in the face. Each day began with ice breakers, name games, and a brief overview of the expectations and concluded with reflections and worshipful singing. Each day also had a small group Bible Study time where our leaders opened up conversation with our students about faith life, the church, where God is moving in the world, and how we trust in God. We concluded this awesome week with a large group reflection called pebble in the pond, during which students shared their incredible experiences with one another, sharing about the great games, new friendships, and strong desires to be involved this coming year and definitely next year for 678 again.

For me the most heart warming moments were around that pebble in a pond exercise where students who aren’t members of our church (or are members not yet connected) spoke about how welcomed they were and eager they were to be more involved. Holding 36 students (our number on the final day) in concentration for a half hour as they each reflected about God was probably a miracle, but the silence and seriousness from the group was a deep sign of respect for each other and appreciation for the culture of community that they formed during their week together. These students are bound together in ways that will help them grow deeper faith, reconnect more often and surround each other with positive influence for years to come! I’m so excited to see how they continue to grow and challenge each other and myself in years to come.

There are many thank you’s due. Heidi was a leader for 678 for 4 of the 5 days, and she was incredible. Without a kid in this program and an upcoming wedding in just two weeks, she had every reason not to help, but she did and was an excellent addition to the team. She was a cheerleader and a trusted adult for the students, and a great small group leader. Amy, Kayla, and Jacob were three student leaders present every single day. They were incredible role models for our kids, they each lead games, small group discussions, and circled around the kids on the outside in such beautiful ways that made every student feel welcomed and valued. It seemed that Kayla was adopted by a new group of students every day as a big sister. Amy was a camp counselor encouraging and leading games with gusto. Jacob rallied the group with his guitar playing and clever wit. It really was a great group.

What an incredible week! What a great beginning to a ministry to 6, 7, and 8^th graders! There's more to come for this age group. Much more! I think of it as training for youth group. They get committed to our community, our traditions, and their faith, and we hold out some of the really awesome experiences so that they can't wait to be part of the high school group as leaders, participants, and deeply connected friends.

End of the year bonfire

Last night at youth group (actually two nights ago) we closed our year with a bonfire during our youth group time. The original plan was to meet at an adult leader's house for the bonfire, such is the tradition of this group, but the week of rain preceding our bonfire night turned the backyard into more of a swamp than a yard. Instead we met at church during our regular time and used the park and the yard at church to stage our bonfire.

This was the highest attended event all year! 64 of us in total and even though we changed plans the day of the bonfire (announcemnet in church, FB update/message, and a few texts) not a single person accidentally showed up at the leader's house, everyone met at church. That is a true testiment to the technological age that we live in!


In years past this bonfire has been kind of a senior sendoff, a goodbye for the leaders, and mostly a hangout time for students. I tried to keep a similar feel to the evening, but I wanted to change a little of the dynamic so that it was consistent with a welcoming group that has grown rather than a small intimate group as it has been in the past. Simply from a logistics stand point, we couldn't pull all the seniors to the front of the group and have the group give them individual comments and well wishes. It would have been awkward for the handful of kids who had come to youth group for the first time, and the seniors receiving generic comments from strangers. I think what we did was better!

We started the evening with grilled food and didn't meet in the basement as usual. Instead we took advantage of one of our main-level commons areas. I think this very simple change helped our kids feel like the evening maintained some of the typical bonfire feel. From dinner we headed outside to the park for a traditional game of ultimate Frisbee. With 64 people, there was no chance of playing a unified game, so I introduced four options: a competitive game of ultimate, a relaxed game of ultimate, a game of soccer, and a chance to help build the bonfire and hang out. Then I spaced out the leaders and let the kids sort themselves out into groups. It worked beautifully and I received lots of comments afterwards about how thankful kids were to have some choice. Our church is perched on the edge of a huge park, so we had plenty of space to spread out and all still be in eye-sight of each other.

After about 35 minutes of games we all gathered at the bonfire, using chairs from inside. (this is huge. kids notoriously forget to bring things like lawn chairs to bonfires so in years past we've carted a few dozen folding chairs and tables out to the adult leaders house, which is a major pain! this allowed us to use the chairs from inside and instantly convert our bonfire area into a comfortable area.) There were marshmallows available, and we started by singing some songs... but the time grew intense pretty rapidly and there weren't many marshmallows roasted. After an opening song, I introduced our reflective part of the evening called Pebble in a Pond.

Pebble in a Pond is definitely not my creation, but I've added a lot of words and intentionality to it, and this past year, it has become a tool that I've used during confirmation and high school retreats to focus and reflect a deep experience. I'll continue to use the exercise this summer following our mission trip and throughout the next years as well.

To setup, I place a large clear bowl on a table where everyone in the group can see. Then I fill a basket with smooth stones, and place it near the bowl. As I introduce Pebble in a Pond I explain that there are three things that can happen when you place a pebble in a pond: splash, ripple, and fill. And then depending on context I explain and give a few examples of what these actions can mean to our group. For youth group last night, we were giving seniors a chance to reflect on their years connected to youth ministry, so they could talk about a splash in their life - like a relationship, event or experience that opened their eyes in a new way. OR they could talk about a ripple in their life that they hope will continue to carry with them throughout their life or into the next chapter of their life. OR they could talk about a way that they had been filled spiritually or emotionally over the last several years.  Then I usually place the first stones into the pond and sit down, inviting students to come forward one at a time to drop a pebble in the pond and reflect.

Every one of our seniors spoke, first introducing themselves and sharing what they planned to do next in their life and each reflected about something different in their life and how they had connected here. Twice during the reflections, I paused the group to lead the group in song, and then allowed them to continue. Once all the seniors had spoken, I invited the rest of our group to come forward and share. I'm often surprised to see who feels called to the pond to share their thoughts and what the decide to share. Three of our very new students came to the pond to share, a few of our students shared that this year had been so difficult that the only thing that kept them going was this group and the relationships they had formed. Other students pointed out students or leaders in particular who had made a difference to them. For me, it filled me up! After a weary week and a lot of changes for this youth ministry in the last year, this was one moment where things seemed to come together. Amen!

Sole Shaped

Last night at youth group we invited 8th graders to join us for our high school youth group time, hoping to bridge the gap and energize students about getting involved once they are in high school. Consequently we had a large group show up and games, were planned to that accord. Also, because we had so many new students we had some extra ice breaker games.

We began the evening by having a very simple game of train wreck as students arrived. I thought it would be more welcoming to have students arrive and see something going on that was easy to connect with than having any lull in our evening. Train wreck is simple and quickly explained, but it does involve chairs, so we were constantly adding chairs to our circle and scooting backwards. It was a very smooth transition from this into our prayer/meal though.

After dinner we played another simple ice breaker called cartoon couples. During the game we put stickers on the backs of all the students and leaders and using only yes and no questions students had to identify themselves and then find their partner from their cartoon series. The only glitch was that I used batman and robin and robin hood and maid marian... but robin ended up with marian leaving batman and robin hood confused. other than that small trip up the game worked great and allowed kids to have a partner for the rest of the evening to play with, get to know, and build a relationship.

So everyone was sitting in partners and I asked partners to group together to form groups of 4 and then groups of 8 in order to play our next game - pictionary relay. It's a great game, one person has a master list of 30 words and in relay for, the teams send one person at a time to receive a new word, and then return to their team to draw the word. The trick to the game however is to make sure that after each guess, the person who guessed correctly comes up to get the next word and has to say the word that they just guessed correctly, that way the leader can give the next word in the sequence and teams can continue playing at different speeds. 30 words was a lot, but it was a good list of easy and hard. We made this game even more fun by separating the leader with the list of words across the fellowship hall, that meant lots of running for each group and a lot of hilarity.

During this game I took time to setup for our final game called Human Foosball. I've played this game a lot of different ways, but this was the most thrilling way that I've played it yet. with 46 people, there are a lot of small details to cover, but since they had already formed groups of 4 earlier that evening, I used those groups to create lines for foosball, each facing a different direction in the fellowship hall. I gave the end of each line a tube of waste hose that had been tied to a chair. Since the hose is stretchy, it allowed the line of people (all holding hands) to manuever back and forth just enough to kick the balls and be forced to work together. I also placed tables on their sides along the outside of the playing area so that there would be some fort of boundary. just like in foosball, it was difficult to get the ball when it was on the side of the court, the whole line had to stretch. We played this game for 20 minutes, which was action packed and very intense. It was a great game and everyone was involved the entire time because we had 5 balls rolling around the court. I think the only complaint was that it was so fast paced that you couldn't really watch the entire game, you were just kept playing. and since everyone was standing you had no idea when you team scored a point. that made the game a little smaller, it felt like you were playing with just 8 people (your line and the line facing you) but it was good regardless.

We closed our time together with a devotional time about shoes. Each of 9 shoes represented a different type of faith that you might have. I introduced the idea, then adult leaders each presented a shoe and read a short statement connecting the shoe style to faith (baby shoes for instance represented having outgrown your faith and ready to ask more questions). It was a good devotion and all the kids were focused and interested, but I should have given leaders their own postcard with the shoe descriptions on them. Instead I had them read from the same piece of paper, which took a little time as each adult found their place, and squinted in the dark to read. bigger font and more pages next time. Following the presentation of shoes, kids were instructed to talk with each other about which shoes represented their current walk with God and which ones they were tempted by. it was light, but effective.

Overall, a great night. even though confirmation was the day before, and it was mothers day evening, the bridging event was excellent. we had great energy and attendance and those 8th graders who came got a great taste of what they can experience this summer and next year.