Hate Religion - Love Jesus

Last night at youth group we watched and discussed the latest youtube sensation: Why I hate religion but love Jesus. It wasn't my initial decision, I had several leaders mention the video to me and I came across this interesting blog (rethinking youth ministry) that gave me some ideas. Our event was different - it was after all contextual to our group - but it was excellent and truly one of the better nights of our youth group this year.

To begin the evening we played a simple game of forced decisions. I asked students to gather in the center of the room and after I announced the two ends of the spectrum, our kids were forced to choose one side of the room or the other. Questions ranged from "sports vs. arts" to "age that kids should be allowed to have a boy/girlfriend - above or below 14". After each decision I choose a few representatives on each side to chime in with their rationale and then we moved on to the next question. One of our more hotly contested decisions was whether or not a guy should be expected to ask the girl out - interesting conversation on that one.

Forced decisions were a perfect primer for the video as I explained to the group that we weren't just watching the video but going to be listening as he made several bold statements about faith and religion. Then we switched rooms, watched the video 1.5 times (there was a small technical glitch so after 2 minutes the video had to be restart. bummer. but it was a blessing to have our kids hear the first and most controversial part of the video twice). immediately after the video I asked for group reaction. not surprisingly there were several who loved his claims. and there were a few who wondered what he meant by 'religion' and were skeptical about some of his message.

Then I turned the kids loose for about 15 minutes to react to 9 bold claims that the poet makes during his video. For each claim, I wrote out on a large piece of butcher paper followed by a simple question or two. following some of the quotes I asked kids to vote with colored dots whether or not they agreed, or vote on a scale (how much do you mask yourself when you come here). The dots helped visualize answers - and do quick analysis.

Surprisingly the kids were really into this activity. They quietly roamed the room honestly writing long answers to deeply personal questions. They posed new questions, drew pictures, and took their own bold stances. Sometimes kids would wander around just reading others thoughts - commenting like they do in facebook - liking different comments. it was powerful to behold.

And then we asked the kids to get in small groups to discuss some of these statements. I had asked several leaders to monitor the papers and choose powerful or summation quotes to read aloud, and then in small groups one at a time we discussed the bold statement and a few of the student quotes. Seriously the hardest part of the evening was moving on from one subject to the next. Every small group was interested and involved in the discussion. It was great!

Maybe part of the success here was that I broke kids into small groups of 3-4 kids. That really helped kids open up and share. In many groups the leaders didn't even say anything as the kids took turns sharing and discussing.

We concluded the evening with some closing worship - a short few sentences from me about this video and how incredible it was to be part of this community - and then we made the sign of the cross on each others foreheads to remember our baptism and closed the evening.

Super Culture

Last night at youth group we celebrated the cultural tradition of watching the Superbowl together. This is honestly the single biggest problem with having youth group on Sunday Night regularly - well except for homework. The Super bowl is too big to ignore, and too insignificant to make it amazing. So youth group is always in this strange grey area.

Fortunately, Superbowl fell on house group night so kids planned to meet in each others houses to mostly watch the game, hang out, and eat yummy food. Typically we host 4 house groups on Sunday nights, but for the Superbowl we narrowed it down to two groups with moderate success.

I say moderate success, but honestly they were great parties. We had good numbers at both, and the kids genuinely enjoyed the company of each other as they laughed at commercials and watched the game.

There was no curriculum for the night - no imposed devotion - just a simple hang out night. A testament to our group dynamic and the good feelings of being in a 'group' that everything worked out so well!