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.