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.