Skip to main content

Thoughts and looking forward

It's been a bit since I've posted. Last week, I was away from the youth group for Princeton Seminary's Institute of Youth Ministry's annual forum. I got to hear from some amazing, brilliant people who really have a heart and understanding for youth ministry. I'm still processing it all! That will be another post, though.
The week before, the youth had a jam-packed Wonderful Wednesday. It was our turn for clean-up after the meal. I didn't realize it would take quite as long as it did. That's one of my shortcomings - judging the amount of time it will take to do anything. I'd be chronically late to new places if it weren't for GPS telling me exactly how long it will take me to drive! I digress. We cleaned every pot, pan, knife, and spoon in the kitchen, as well as the tables and anything else we could get our hands on! I say we... Really, the youth did most of the work. 
Photo source: Cliparts

 After all of that cleaning, we played with the beach ball for a bit. Due to technical issues, we then moved from the youth room to another classroom and watched a couple of videos about stress. We had a short discussion about what we each thought we could start incorporating into our routines to help alleviate stress. We then went back to the youth room and did some guided meditation. Both the videos and the meditation went over like a lead balloon for some of the youth, and were terrific for the others. The lesson did not include any references to God/Jesus/Bible. By the time I was gearing up for the lesson, it was time for most of the youth to go home. Lesson learned. Next time we have clean-up duty, I won't plan to do much. Maybe we can talk about Mary and Martha while they're cleaning, though!
This week, I want to spend time with the beach ball, and looking at the next few months to plan activities outside our usual Wednesday meeting times. The beach ball has over 100 questions and it's really gotten the youth talking. They have fun, we learn about each other, and we get time to talk theology. As far as the calendar, I have some ideas for the next 5 months that I'm going to present to the youth. Each month, I have at least one "servant event" and one "fellowship event" in mind. For this month, May, the youth will be helping with the church clean up day, decorating the bulletin board, and celebrating our seniors who will be graduating soon.

 I'm looking forward to the coming months with the youth and their parents. The forum has re-energized me and given me deeper understandings as well as new ideas.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hidden Crosses

One thing that's been catching my eye in worship lately has been just how many hidden crosses there are in just the sanctuary. I want to know how many crosses the youth see in the worship space. I want them to look beyond the purposeful and obvious crosses. After we tally the crosses we've spotted, we would head to the youth room. Once we are settled in the room, the first question I have for the youth is "What does it mean that there we found more crosses when we started to look for them?" I plan to focus on how Jesus can be found in the unexpected places. My second question for the youth is "Who is Jesus?" Have them write their answers, so no one is influenced by others' answers. Each youth will then open their Bible to Matthew 25:34-40 . I will have two volunteers read all the way through - one after the other. More questions for the youth: Who is hungry near you? How can you feed them? Is it possible someone is spiritually hungry
Post a Comment
Read more

Easter Egg Dyeing Party - Reflections

This one goes in the books as a "must do again"! We had a lot of fun, especially for something that got thrown together last-minute. For this year's party (which was actually more of a hang out), I bought the following: 25 clear plastic party cups (5 ounces) 1,000 toothpicks (I thought it said 100 - oops!) 100 vinyl non-powdered gloves 5 dozen eggs 1 gallon of vinegar (this was entirely too much!) 2 boxes of regular, assorted food dye 1 box of Neon food dye (We need at least 2 boxes) 1 party size bag chips 4.5 dozen cookies plastic tarp/sheeting plastic tablecloth shaving cream crayons gemstone stickers I found a chart for a lot of different colors you could make with food dye plus water & vinegar. I printed that out and one of the teens happily took charge of counting out the 20 or more drops of dye for each color. These produced wonderfully vibrant colors on the eggs. I showed the youth how to draw on the eggs with crayon which would le
Post a Comment
Read more