TBC Youth Group

Because David and John weren’t able to make it, Youth Group was cancelled. (It’s also Christmas season, so people probably had other things to do anyway, hopefully with family.)

Unfortunately, it’s not clear when Youth Group will start back up. Because of David’s vacation schedule, he’s thinking perhaps January 18^th—except that that would be a full month with no Youth Group, which is much too long.

Movie Nights are pretty standard, for our group: When David gets to the church, he grabs a couple of the kids, and they had to the video store to grab a movie. Movies have to be PG or less, and David always reserves the right to veto.

They bring the movie back to the church, and David orders a pizza while John does the devotion. They then start the movie. The pizza usually arrives halfway through, so we pause it for a dinner break, and then start it back up again when we’re done eating.

On this particular night, the movie was Christmas With the Kranks.

What do you do when you can’t think of anything else to do for Youth Group? That’s right! You have a games night!

We started off with our devotions. (Actually, we started off with thirty minutes or so of sitting around, waiting for everyone to arrive…) The Bible Study was a continuation at our last games night. We’d already talked about faith; now we were talking about how faith should show itself in our lives. Although works cannot save us—nothing we can do could ever save us from the damnation we earn; that’s why Christ died for us—if you become a Christian, your life will be marked by works. You will also repent of your sins; people will sometimes “backslide,” but they will [eventually] be bothered by those sins, and come to God to ask for forgiveness.

After the devotions, we had some “down time,” while we waited for the church to clear out. (The YMAD group was still downstairs.) We played Hang Man, while we waited, and then Pictionary. And, in retrospect, I really wish I’d been taking pictures of the drawings, as we went. We have some… ahem… rather creative kids in our group.

As usual, we ended the night with a game of Boneyard.

Because both Odele and David were unavailable, we had to cancel Youth Group. No decision yet as to what we’ll do next Friday.

We do have some good news, though: We’ll have a new Youth Group leader starting next Friday.

On Friday, we paired up with Urban Promise again, and went to visit with some other Youth Groups from the area, at Islington Evangel Centre (IEC). It was a good night, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Unfortunately, not many of the older kids were there; I don’t know if it’s because we met earlier than usual (6:30 instead of 7:00), and they couldn’t make it, or if it was just because they weren’t interested. (Maybe some came too late, and found us gone? I’d told people that they had to be there for 6:30, sharp, or they would miss us, but it wouldn’t be the first time that they didn’t listen. On the other hand, I didn’t get any calls on my cell, so that’s probably not the case.)

We started off the night with a “getting to know each other” game; we were given a set of questions, and had to find people we hadn’t met before, who could answer the questions. (e.g. “find someone with an interesting name, and find out what it means,” or, “find someone who can recite all of the words from the opening theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”)

After that, we had some food. I think most of the kids were still sitting in their own groups, although the hope had been that they would mix a bit. But you have to take baby steps, right? You can’t expect them to suddenly make instant friends with strangers.

When we finished the food, it was time for a movie. Unfortunately, I had to miss the movie, so I can’t talk much about it, because I had to give someone a quick ride home, during that time. (I was told that it was a modern-day version of the Good Samaritan.) I got back just as the movie was ending, and there was a bit of a message from IEC’s Youth Pastor.

We ended the night with a game of charades.

It was a good night, and we’re hoping to repeat it. (Where the “we” in this case is all of the leaders involved.) We’re thinking maybe once a month we can do this. I was told that some of the leaders are getting together on a regular basis, to discuss the ministry, and I’d like to join them as well, if I can. My schedule might not permit me to join too often, but if I can, I will. I think it’s great when churches are working together, and having a common goal—like bringing youth to Christ—is always a good impetus for that to happen.

A simple—and short—night. For this outing we were partnering up with the Urban Promise YMAD group, and the kids in that group can’t stay out as late as the youth in our Youth Group. Which means we had to leave on time, we could only play one game of bowling, and there wasn’t time for a devotion before we went.

Because we partnered up with YMAD, there were more people there: twenty-three, including leaders. (If I remember correctly.) Unfortunately, because our groups were so big, we had to be separated, with Urban Promise in one lane, and the Youth Group in three other lanes, halfway across the alley.

But aside from the fact that it was a short night, which disappointed a lot of the kids who are used to staying out later, I think everyone had a good time. (We’re supposed to go from 7:00–10:00, although 11:00 is a pretty normal time for us to end. So ending at 9:30—or rather, 9:45, by the time we finally got out of the bowling alley—was disappointing to some.)

I kind of wish I had a more exciting Youth Group event to write about, for my first post to this blog, but I guess I have to start somewhere…

The default Youth Group event, when nothing is [properly] planned, is to do a “Games Night” at the church. What kind of games we play can be anything from Charades to Crazy Eights to Boneyard. (Boneyard is a version of Hide and Go Seek in the dark. It’s incredibly popular with the kids at Thistletown.) Unfortunately, we’d already done a Games Night, the week before—including a game or two of Boneyard—so this outing was even more lackluster than usual.

We had a smaller group of kids, this time. (Again, probably because we’d just done a Games Night the week before.) If I remember correctly, there were five kids, and three leaders.

As we were waiting for people to arrive, some people went into the Sanctuary to play the drums. This quickly turned into an impromptu jam session, with various people taking turns on the drums, myself on guitar, and everyone else singing. (They were singing songs about milk; I’d missed the beginning of the jam session, so I don’t know how that became the topic…)

When we were done, we did our devotions. John did the devotion on the concept of faith; what does the Bible really mean, when it talks about “faith?” Is it enough to just know about something? Or to know about it and believe it? No, it was decided, Biblical faith means that you have to know about God’s Grace (Knowledge), believe that it’s true (Assent), and actually trust that God can save you (Trust). Which forms the acronym KAT.

After devotions, we hung around a bit longer, and went home at the normal time (which is not normal).

Next week, we’re planning to go bowling, along with the Urban Promise YMAD group. This means that we’ll probably have over twenty kids, instead of five.

Odele’s profile coming soon…

John’s profile coming soon…

David is in his early 30’s, and has been with the Youth Group for quite a number of years now. He first came to the Youth Group to help out with driving, when the group went to outings outside of the church. However, because of the lack of leaders, he quickly moved into that role, and has never looked back. Since he’s been with the group, he’s seen an entire “generation” of kids leave the group, some of whom came back to become leaders themselves.

With every year that passes, David has less and less in common with the kids, but they put up with him anyway. He doesn’t always listen to the same music, and he’s a terrible dresser, but teenagers are surprisingly forgiving, when it comes to such shortcomings…

He’s also a Deacon, which means that he’s on the Thistletown Board, and plays guitar in the Jehovah Shalom Youth Choir & Band. Professionally, David is a consultant, working for a large Information Technology firm, and is a part-time author. David is the one who does most of the maintenance on this blog. Online, he calls himself sernaferna, and he also has his own blog, where he rambles on about whatever’s on his mind.