Last night at youth group we had a brave senior share his faith story with our group. Couched in between a few classic games and some intense small group conversation - it was a powerful night.
We began the evening as normal with a gathering time. I asked students to write what they were thankful for on a post-it note and drop it into a hat as they entered. Then for our warm-up we chose three students who acted out the thankfulness notes in kind of a loose charades game. It was a little silly and it was really helpful to have a leader screening the notes to prevent repeats, but a good opening for our group.
After Joys and Concerns we headed into the next room and sat in chairs in a circle to play shuffle your buns. We began with just a basic version to get everyone moving, before adding in a slap on the chair to move the opposite direction and eventually adding two people to the middle. I think it's helpful as the leader to play this game with the students so that you can jump into the middle at any time and alleviate confusion (leaving an empty chair and ready to play again.
Taking advantage of our chairs in a circle, we also played a game called this is a fork. In this game I passed around an imaginary object but every time the object was passed, everyone forgot what it was forcing them to ask their neighbors until it reached the leader who then reminded them what it was... it's a totally silly game and wouldn't have worked in our group if we hadn't warmed up with shuffle your buns. But it's simple enough and silly enough to have a lot of fun. For our size we stationed two leaders at opposite ends of the circle and each passed different objects to our right and left: Fork, spec of dust, bowling ball, and marble (all pretend - of course). We could have probably had more leaders start passing objects to add to the confusion - but it was plenty of confusion and fun. I really had to pay attention to the end of the game though because a few of the objects were getting lost due to the students frustration (and silliness). Ending at a high point in the game is critical for this game success.
Once we were back in the youth room we settled everything down and made the hard transition to a serious moment so that our senior could share his faith story. As a leader, I was nervous about this story. When we met last week to work through his story, I could tell that he was comfortable sharing details about his history with drugs and greed that might make some in the room uncomfortable or un-relatable. So we talked a lot about how his story could connect to others who didn't have the same past. I was also nervous because this student isn't out of the darkness of the story yet and I wanted him to be authentic with his story and not lie. That authenticity was really appreciated by leaders and students and their conversation was deep and diverse.
I added a Bible study to the small group this week - which I don't always do - in case there were some groups that couldn't relate to the message. The study of John 8:1-11 (woman caught in adultery) was a great fit for groups who didn't connect to the story because it focuses so much on judging others and forgiveness.
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