College Fair

Last night at youth group we hosted a joint youth group with other Lutheran Churches from the area from 6:30-7:30 followed by a Lutheran college fair from 7:30-8:30. Though I'm not interested in hosting the event every year, I loved the joint youth group and partnership with Lutherancolleges.org which hosted our fair. They brought in 14 Lutheran school reps and provided a financial aid seminar for parents at 6:30.

Check in/gathering – I thought this was great. every leader wore an orange IGNITE shirt, which is a big help for students and leaders. Snacks were nice but didn't seem necessary. Music over the speakers as students gathered was perfect!

Ice breaker/introduction – Not bad. I introduced churches, leaders, and college students, gave the students our game plan and then led the game evolution.  It was silly and fun and seemed to get everyone going. As students completed the game they joined a random small group - I should have had the small group leaders in a line ready to grab their kids for the next piece though with better instructions about where to go for small groups.

Team Challenges – Wonderful. A great mix of fun games, good diversity in the groups, and good conversation. feather thing, human pretzel, name game... all simple and they all wrote questions at the end for our college panel which was really cool. Most of the groups were integrated with kids from all churches which was also really fun. 

Panel Discussion – This was the highlight for me. I loved hearing the students’ perspective. The questions the kids generated were really good and I thought Pat did a great job facilitating! (best prank, should you go to a community college before a large university, how did you choose your college, what do you miss about high school... among others)

Closing Devotion – Pastor Janet did a good job. It was a little later than we wanted, but didn't feel too bad. I think the framework of having God with us at college is critical and I thought it was important to include.

College Fair – well done by the college hosts. Lots of good food, conversation and plenty of parents who stuck around!

I really enjoyed the group dynamic during the evening. I counted 47 students and 16 adult leaders… My own group numbers were down a bit (27 were from St. Paul), many just weren't that interested in the Lutheran College Fair because of age or preference. I felt that it was successful from my perspective.

Curtis Fry

Last night at youth group we invited guest speaker Curtis Fry to speak with our teenagers. His story is incredible! It was a story that challenged our teenagers and our small group conversations were sparked in all kinds of directions.

We began with an ice breaker called forced decisions which allowed our teenagers to move around a little bit and begin to think about difficult topics like morality, perception and others judgments of us. This game was a great fit because we didn't have time to move to another room to move around - instead we played it right in our room.

Then we shared joys and concerns followed by introducing our speaker, Curtis. He was very good. As he told his story he shared the bad decisions that eventually led to him being arrested. Then he told his story growing up and who he was. Then he told us what he was arrested for: murder. Curtis' story is bleak and the hope that he offered often comes in the hope and faith he has in God.

Curtis did get a little preachy at points. He could have been more brief and allowed more time for questions. And it seemed that Curtis was using the shotgun approach of just covering lots of topics rather than just closing in on one and really selling it. For instance, he mentioned red flags that God had showed him - which would have been a great closing. He talked about choices that he made - but it was really only one choice that was a mistake. He talked about life in prison, forgiveness, grace, drinking... all could have been good in and of themselves. We'll surely touch on these again in the future months.

Q and A was brief it seemed our teenagers, there were over 50 of us so intimidation was likely high.

Small groups were all over the board as their topics were so varied. Kids reacted strongly to the choices, drinking, and forgiveness themes. the leader reaction at the end of the night was also all over the board many connecting to different points in the talk, surprised with kids' reaction, and wrestling with their own ideas of having a convicted murderer in our room.

It was a powerful night - very memorable!

Breaking the Rules

Last night at youth group we provoked our students to think about how Jesus broke the rules and in turn how we might also need to break the rules. In our study of John, we looked at chapter 5 when Jesus heals on the Sabbath. Of course this was against the Jewish Sabbath laws and Jesus gives a great answer "my father is still working and I am still working." In our large group we also made the claim that Jesus chose the man who had been paralyzed for 38 years because there had been a social rule about healing yourself first, ignoring someone on the fringes and looking down on someone who was paralyzed. All rules that Jesus broke.

Nothing about the evening was a total home run, but the two truths and a lie tournament was a good fit and it allowed our kids to get to know each other better. The silly stunt was fun, but just a time filler. The large group was good - Bibles in hands of teenager and a good study - but the technology wasn't smooth and we waited for the youtube clip to buffer. The small groups were good, but I don't think all the groups got to the point of challenging each other to break a social rule for Jesus.

Gathering + snacks
Silly stunt - the pour!

Choose 4 contestants and give them each a glass filled with ice and a bottle of soda (coke?). Instruct each contestant to pour the soda into the glass and see who can fill up the glass with the most soda on one pour without spilling.

Joys and Concerns
Ice Breaker - Fellowship Hall - two truths and lie

First, split in groups of 4-5, then in groups of 8-10, then transition back to youth room and have one contestant from each group share (be sure to sit by your group)

Large Group Lesson (John 5:1-18) - pass out Bibles
       http://twentytwowords.com/2011/06/08/new-yorker-rides-into-obstacles-in-bike-lanes-to-prove-a-point/
Small Groups
Prayer and Praise

that's what makes me smile

Last night at youth group we were blown away by a senior faith story. When I met with this young woman - we'll call her Sarah earlier in the week I was sure the story would be good, but it was better than that, it was awesome.

We began the evening with normal ice breakers and then proceeded into the fellowship hall for a game called screaming toes. When two people looked at each other and screamed, they became partners, left the circle and were given a few questions printed on postcards to get to know each other better. Included in the questions were instructions to make a secret handshake - so it was fun to watch kids finish this exercise with some fellowship and silliness.

When we headed back to the youth I put up a text poll - but the answers have not been good lately. perhaps we're using this resource too often, or maybe the uncensored answers are getting too silly. it does provide a nice transition and it's collaborative which is nice.

Then we opened the floor for the senior faith story. I prefaced the talk by explaining this would be serious, that we all need to be respectful and show her that we were listening, and that it - including the small group time - is always confidential.

Sarah's talk was a home run! when she spoke her voice was broken - clearly moved by sharing this story - and it drew everyone in. she opened by explaining that the divorce of her parents was particularly difficult for her and went on to say that every person in her family has a lifetime restraining order on him... enough said. Everyone was hooked to this beautiful story about how she has learned to guard herself and not let anyone see who she really is, not let her mom see when she was bothered, or not let her therapist see when she was hurting. If she smiled, everyone left her alone, so she would just smile and people would stop asking. She explained what it feels like to have acquaintances and not have any friends, then she explained her experimentation with marijuana and when her mom caught her and finally drove her back into this youth group. My favorite part of the story was her ending line: I realized that at youth group I didn't have to smile, which is what makes me smile the most.

After the faith story, I addressed the group and retold the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well. This was a great fit as Jesus looks past her guard and sees the real woman - calling her out and to a better life. We concluded by talking a little about how this group becomes a little like a church community before heading into small groups to debrief from the story and/or to think about our church community and what or why we do what we do.

Messy Olympics

Last night at youth group we hosted our annual Messy Olympics. It is a chance for students to get messy with our silly games that we would never play otherwise, and a chance to for our small groups to dig into the messiness of life. Everything about the event and the youth group that followed was great - but it was too long! This year to maximize the daylight, our messy olympics was held before youth group - starting at 5:00 pm. It was a good strategy because it allowed students to choose to participate and then stay for youth group or avoid messy olympics and just attend youth group. I was honestly surprised that half of our students skipped the messy part and just came to youth group, until I realized that the kids who came to the whole thing were here for close to 4 hours... that's a long time on a Sunday night when you might have already been to church that morning for a few hours.

The other difference this year was an attempt to keep the chaos more controlled and have less food/mess fighting. It worked in a lot of ways: sitting at tables in the grass, having contestants from each team participate in smaller events where others could watch, a leader was assigned to each team, adding a sound system and playing some music... these were all good for our group.

Here was our schedule:

5:00 Gathering in the youth room

5:10 Break into 6 teams, decide event participants, make team flags out of edible sticky paint and poster board (this was a great opening because it got everyone a little messy. Just cornsyrup and food coloring and it's really sticky)

5:20 First Event - Whipcream Whistle (faces into pie pans filled with whipcream trying to find a whistle and make the sound - fun to watch and play)

5:25 Second Event – Mud Makers (sculpting relay with mud - very messy! we used tupper ware boxes prefilled with mud and was really fun to watch)

5:35 Third Event – Donut Dash (blindfolded contestants attempt to eat powdered donuts suspended from a string - didn't go over as well as I had hoped. I was trying to modify a game that would normally involve suspending them from the ceiling and the stick I used just wasn't as good.)

5:40 Fourth Event – Raisin Bran Mayhem (bowls of cereal trying to sort out raisins from bran wasn't too bad, but not very messy)

5:45 Fifth Event – Jello Toss (using prepackaged jello cups we had a tossing competition like a waterballoon toss. It was fun but the mess happened after a team was out and would hurl jello at other teams)

5:55 Sixth Event – Marshmallow toss (dipping marshmallows in cups of chocolate syrup and then tossing into their partners mouth - really fun, pretty messy!)

6:00 Dinner Setup

6:10 Messy Dinner (spaghetti eaten in different ways. It was just okay - some students were just tired of being messy at this point, others really wanted to get more messy so it was a weird mix)

6:30 Clean up

6:45 Gather in Youth Room (Ice breaker, Joys and Concerns, Awards)

7:00 Message (I used a video from youteach - the skit guys - about playing the cards you've been dealt. It's powerful and fit the message of the evening. Then I recapped the video by talking about Job and Niccodemus and the different ways they dealt with fear adn doubt, the different cards they had been dealt. And then I mentioned my own cards that I've been dealt - good and bad)

7:20 Small groups (we sent each small group leader with a pack of cards, scrap paper, markers and tape. The first thing each student did was identify some cards that they had been dealt in life good and bad. And as they shared and made their cards they discussed honestly how their lives were going. It was very intense. Very good conversations!)

8:05 Worship