So the new people trend continued last night but with much less drama. We had great weather so most everyone was outside before service started. I decided a few things from that experience. First, we need some new sports equipment. The basketball was totally flat and very hard to play with. We also need more great weather play games most the night kind of days. We have a local park not far away with plenty of things to do so I'm thinking field trip and bring our portable sound system. It'll be fun. Some people don't enjoy growth.
One of my youth told me last night, "I wish those people would go home," indicating a large group of new people. I asked her why thinking maybe there was some underlying drama but she was totally honest in her reply, "I like it when it is smaller. It's more special." I think that is the reason many churches and Youth groups don't grow. People like it small and special so they work to keep it that way.
I'm not sure how to fix that concept but my plan is to try and make it more fun the more people we have. With many things there is a kind of critical mass that is required before things get really exciting. Certain games and such get way better with more people. Speaking of games. I have one that we can't play all that often because we need people who have never played it before. We now have plenty of new bodies so I'll be rolling it out soon. Details to come.
Anyways, the weather was perfect before during and shortly after service. Just as the last group, mostly new kids, was heading out it started raining. They were getting ready to leave because it started sprinkling. They went inside and made plans but by the time they actually started to leave it was raining really hard. I offered them a ride but they said, "We're grown up enough to walk home in the rain." I just smiled and told them if they changed their minds they could come back for a ride. A couple minutes after they left the rain and wind picked up into a rain I hadn't seen since I was in a typhoon. Near vertical rain driving at 50mph so heavy you couldn't see 5'. It was wild. They turned around and walked back through that and came in soaking wet. It was terrible but so freakin' funny at the same time. Anyways, I gave them a ride to their homes in the church van. It was nice to talk with them on the way. Only one had been to the church before the rest came with her for the first time that night. So I got to spend several minutes talking with them while I served them.
We lost power at the house because of that so no update till now, but we have power back and my daughter is getting much better. We were going to take her to daycare for the first time today but she's still a bit sick for that. Hopefuly tomorrow she'll be well enough to go. We are planning on doing our V-day together time tomorrow since we have a party planned for the youth on Saturday. Actaully that is pretty cool since we are workgin with several churches in this event which is one of the things I'm really excited about.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
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6 comments:
Cool, congrats on the new growth.
When people make comments like that girl, wanting to keep things small and special, I tend to believe that she means special for her, not special for new people who might not know Jesus yet. People are self-centered that way (I can be too, a lot actually).
As a "church leader" (that description always seems weird to me) I know, first hand, that it's always hard to get people focused on others instead of themselves.
I can't remember, but were you the person posting about a game where you killed someone in the audience and drama kids went around acting parts? If you were, how did that go? If not, do you know who did?
Max02,
Yeah that girl is pretty self centered. She is one of the youngest and it really shows. I've been trying to get her and one of her friends into our outreach group. That statement has reinforced my desire to see her in my outreach group.
I might have been the person that mentioned doing a murder mystery event. I am planning something for the 25th. The last Wednesday of the month is our game night. Right now I"m trying to decide if I want to try and plan it myself, use free material, or buy a kit. For this first event I'm thinking of free either self planned or free content online. I'm keeping it top secret for this first time so no one will know the theme or anything. That will break some of it because people won't come in character but they will be forced into volunteering once there so I don't have to worry about some skipping out the first time because they don't know what to expect. If they generally enjoy t I'll do this again with more notice so people can show up dressed for their parts.
Congratulations!
I'm a student leader at a youth group that averages 500-600 jr. high and high school students a week.
I understand where the girl is coming from, because it's nice to be really close with everyone in your youth group, and with your pastors, but she's not looking at it from a godly standpoint. Sure, you could keep the group small, but do you really want to be excluding people from the kingdom of heaven because you like to be super close to everyone in your group? That's something you might think about asking her.
We usually don't play games, but we did a fun interactive type thing last thursday at our leadership meeting. it would work with your youth group. There were two strips of tape put on the floor, and everyone lined up on the outside edge of both strips. Then one of our pastors started asking questions- both fun ones, and ones about our testimonys. If you had ever done the thing she asked in the question, you stepped over the line. It was fun and interesting to learn what your friends and people you didn't really know had been through. Also, if you were struggling with something, you knew of people who had gotten through the same things and could help you. I enjoyed it, and i learned some interesting things about my leaders.
Dana,
Honestly I couldn't imagine a single Youth Group here with that many students. We are a bit rural with only about 2000 enrolled between the two high schools. It would need some serious infrastructure in place to manage that many. Just hitting around 50 is taxing what we have.
Soon we will need to start breaking into small groups which will mean more specific training for the leaders and students leaders. I'd like to identify upper high (juniors and seniors) to lead the small groups during the breakouts and get the adult leaders involved in monitoring the discussions but only stepping in if there is a problem. This should make it still seem small and special for the ones who have been there for a while.
I like games/icebreakers but not everything is really a game. The past couple of weeks I've been showing some videos from You Tube and then testing if it can be done, aka myth busting. It takes a little research but the teens really enjoyed it. I was really disappointed when I couldn't get one experiment to work that seemed like it should work, but mostly it is fun showing that these things are totally faked and how.
I love your idea of the smaller groups. We do something like that too. We have our big youth group on Wednesdays, and then on Thursdays what we call leadership, or the student leaders, all break off into smaller groups depending on what ministry we serve in on Wednesday nights. We go more in depth on the sermon from the night before, and connect with some other girls, (or guys) who can help us out with whatever we're going through. In our groups we become like family, often times closer with the ones in our groups than we are with our actually families for one reason or another. It would take a while to set up, but it works.
Dana,
That is pretty much what we are looking at doing. I really hope the same dynamic will eventually form in our small groups.
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