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!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Taking Notice
Last night at youth group we themed our night around taking notice. Both games that we played were themed, the small group, and a contemplative moment during our closing worship was also themed to encourage students to pay attention to their relationships, their attitudes, and their actions.
The first game was a basic ice breaker called osmosis. Kids paired up with a friend and sat facing them in a straight line. Then I asked half of the line to move 4 people to the right, so that the kids were no longer sitting near their partner but were meeting someone new. Using a list of questions on a dry erase board, I encouraged the kids to get to know each other for 3-4 minutes. After our time limit, I asked the kids to sit back to back (so they couldn't see each other's answers) and had them answer four questions about themselves (silly things like, where would you want to live, what is your favorite part of the circus, what would you rescue from your house in a natural disaster...). And finally everyone made a circle and one at a time students tried to guess what their partner wrote down as an answer for our questions. The game worked well, took much longer than expected, even though I only asked one question per person.
The next game was called Pavlovian charades. After being split into teams, one person from the group receives a clue and is in charge of a bowl of m&m's. the team begins trying to act out different actions and when they get closer to the action, they receive M&M's as a reward. eventually, team members are able to guess that tehy are supposed to be standing on one foot flapping their arms like a chicken (for example). The game worked, but it was shorter than I thought. The actions that the kids came up with were strange, and not as specific as they could have been. because of our numbers I had also split kids into 4 teams instead of 2, and I think that moved the game faster because they saw other teams and copied each other. It was silly though, lots of laughter and fun!Both games were completely inclusive, even our more difficult students could play.
We concluded games with some good conversation based on Romans 12:1-2 and becoming more aware of our actions. Then during worship I invited kids to think about what they need to be paying closer attention to: their relationships, their actions, or their attitudes. During our closing songs, students came forward to light a candle which represented their attention to one of these areas. The cool effect was the amount of light in our room that grew as students lit candles. So I mentioned it in closing that when we focus our attention, paying closer attention to our relationships, actions and attitudes, we shine God's light more brightly and light up the world. It was a good moment for our group.
The first game was a basic ice breaker called osmosis. Kids paired up with a friend and sat facing them in a straight line. Then I asked half of the line to move 4 people to the right, so that the kids were no longer sitting near their partner but were meeting someone new. Using a list of questions on a dry erase board, I encouraged the kids to get to know each other for 3-4 minutes. After our time limit, I asked the kids to sit back to back (so they couldn't see each other's answers) and had them answer four questions about themselves (silly things like, where would you want to live, what is your favorite part of the circus, what would you rescue from your house in a natural disaster...). And finally everyone made a circle and one at a time students tried to guess what their partner wrote down as an answer for our questions. The game worked well, took much longer than expected, even though I only asked one question per person.
The next game was called Pavlovian charades. After being split into teams, one person from the group receives a clue and is in charge of a bowl of m&m's. the team begins trying to act out different actions and when they get closer to the action, they receive M&M's as a reward. eventually, team members are able to guess that tehy are supposed to be standing on one foot flapping their arms like a chicken (for example). The game worked, but it was shorter than I thought. The actions that the kids came up with were strange, and not as specific as they could have been. because of our numbers I had also split kids into 4 teams instead of 2, and I think that moved the game faster because they saw other teams and copied each other. It was silly though, lots of laughter and fun!Both games were completely inclusive, even our more difficult students could play.
We concluded games with some good conversation based on Romans 12:1-2 and becoming more aware of our actions. Then during worship I invited kids to think about what they need to be paying closer attention to: their relationships, their actions, or their attitudes. During our closing songs, students came forward to light a candle which represented their attention to one of these areas. The cool effect was the amount of light in our room that grew as students lit candles. So I mentioned it in closing that when we focus our attention, paying closer attention to our relationships, actions and attitudes, we shine God's light more brightly and light up the world. It was a good moment for our group.
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