Guest Blogger Bethany Morris describes her experience at Visit 2 Church's youth group meeting...
Not only did I spend this Sunday morning in church I spent
this evening at the youth group. The youth pastor invited me after the service
to go to their evening study. Since there were 2 other soon-to-be-college
freshmen there I would not be completely out of my age range.
When I arrived I saw the youth pastor
and he said the other students were just arriving. He showed me the space then introduced me, by
name, to the other students. I was glad that I was remembered and I knew that
if I were a regular attender I would be very well cared for. There were a few
minutes while everyone arrived that everyone talked, or tossed a ball. I sat in
a chair and quietly observed the activity. There were about 4 groups of 3-4
people each that talked or played amongst themselves. The middle schoolers hung
out with one of the new college freshman, and other middle schoolers and the
lower and upperclassmen seemed to have their own little discussions.
Of course, the rule that the new comer
always has to be hit or injured when coming to a youth meeting for the first
time, held true as I was bonked on the head by a rouge ball (I will have to
beware of that rule if I get invited to any more youth services I would rather
not have different shades of black and blue for each week I go somewhere new).
The games began. (If you don't want to
hear about new youth games you can skip over this paragraph.) We played a ball catching game where you had
to clap before catching the ball that was thrown at you at random. I noticed
the youth pastor held back on me a little and only threw the ball at me a few
times to make me feel more comfortable. This was followed by a clever game
where we had to open a box entirely covered in duct tape with oven mitts on.
The box was passed around the circle and we each savagely clawed the box with
pretty useless padded fingers to try to get the prize inside (no throwing, punching
or smashing allowed). Then we played a game of kings ball (not sure I’ve remembered
the name correctly) which was like 4 square with 9 people. After that came “rock,
paper, scissors” mixed with evolution where we started as an egg then evolved
when we won rock paper scissors 2 out of 3 times with a partner. Then we
evolved to a chicken, but when you lost you devolved to an egg - or up to a dinosaur.
After you won dinosaur without devolving to a chicken or even egg again you
joined the winners. The games took up a lot of the time that could have spent
teaching but I really enjoyed unwinding from this week and being able to laugh
at people's dinosaur impressions as we stomped around the room (I am convinced
mine was the best).
The lesson was teaching us how to prove
that Jesus was the son of God without using the Bible. The pastor apologized to
me saying that it wasn't a typical lesson, but I loved it. It was thought
provoking and compelling to listen to as well as extremely useful for me
personally. We even got to talk about how humans cannot perceive infinity and
God is infinity.
I have very few things to critique
about my experience, but a few things I noticed were:
1. There was no set student leader in the
group which could be either extremely good or extremely bad. There was no favoritism and everything seemed
to be very equal and harmonious. Yes there were little clicks but nothing
screamed conflict from those differences. The youth group seemed healthy as a
whole. However, as a new person I was not sure who to talk to sit with or
interact with because no one was pointed out to me as someone I could hang out
with for the night until I could get things figured out for if I come back.
2. The
group did not know what to do with a new person. I could tell from the moment I
saw the other students that someone new was not a regular occurrence. They
waved at me but no one told me their names or anything about themselves unless
if I shared first. They interacted with me in games fine and they were friendly
but they still didn't know how I fit in. I was the extra piece of their finely
oiled and routinely running machine that they just didn't know what to do with or
what I was supposed to do. I can't really blame them for this fact though, with
a group of 15 students on a good day, where you know everyone and at least a
little about them, it's hard when someone new is introduced into that setting.
However, it is harder being the outsider with 13 people that you know nothing
about in a new environment and no knowledge of how things run.
Overall it was a positive experience
and I would definitely consider going back if I got the chance.
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