ATTENDANCE: Wow, way, WAY down. A combination of factors, I think. Sickness: everybody and their brother around town is sick. Long weekend: no school tomorrow, so some families are out of town. And Valentine’s Day: a bunch of parents took a long weekend break themselves and left the kids with grandparents. All in all, a low night.
FUN FACTOR: Well, tried to enhance the interactivity tonight. Didn’t go so hot…
LESSON: Part two of engage messages on stress. Tonight, instead of a typical message, I tried out some interactive stations — a “confession” booth, lectio divina, reflection on the Psalms and a “rest” station. The few who actually engaged lectio loved it. The ones who truly sat down with the Psalms really dug into it. But there was a big crowd who talked at the “rest” station.
MUSIC: The worship team’s adult leader pulled double-duty tonight with the kid’s music/art/drama activities, so he left the youth worship team to their own planning. They pulled out a couple songs they usually play, and it went ok. The general crowd seemed to connect, but the background/planning left a lot to be desired.
VOLUNTEER INVOLVEMENT: We really need some more adult leaders. Top of the to-do list…
UP NEXT: Next week is our Chili Cookoff, the first big fundraiser for the Youth Mission Trip. Should be a good evening, and gives me an extra week to look forward and plan for our last week on Stress.
ATTENDANCE: Back down to the average for this time of the year, although we were missing a few regulars because of the Monday holiday.
FUN FACTOR: Since we were talking about Communion, we plugged in a little non-competitive game of sorts. I put 15 or so traits on a sheet (plays baseball, has a Mac, had a sub for lunch, has a birthday this week) and had the youth try to find somebody to sign all of the boxes. Hopefully they got to know some new people.
LESSON: Part two of intense engage messages. This week was communion, and at the end we had communion in groups of three. I thought I was a little off on the message — a little disjointed, jerky. But once I ditched the mic, they focused real intently and hopefully got something out of it. Thus endeth our intense focus — no engage this week because of our Mission Trip Kickoff.
MUSIC: My Mac is, sad to say, on its last legs. So in the middle of the first song, it died. The worship team pulled a great switcheroo and sang a couple other songs that they and everyone else knew. Then the pulled out a hum-dinger: they’ve been working over the past few weeks and months to write a song, and they finished it. They played it for everyone, and then this week as we open our Mission Trip Kickoff, they’ll lead us in worship — parents, too. Good stuff.
VOLUNTEER INVOLVEMENT: Much lower than it needed to be on this particular night. We had some discipline issues, so I recruited a couple of the older high school guys to keep an eye on the middle-schoolers. Then at our post-engage after hours, we had more trouble. Ah, middle school boys. Glad I read When Church Kids Go Bad!!
Thanks to Kurt for the Weekend Wrapup/Sunday Recap idea. Kurt has three services each weekend, just for Jr Highers. Thankfully I only have one! I’ve wanted to follow along since I started at GBC, but didn’t have the “go get ‘em” yet. Here goes, the first of a weekly recurrence:
This was our winter kickoff. We took the week off last week, and still kind of getting into the groove. But we made tonight our kickoff and had pizza, drinks and dessert afterwards. Which meant there were…
ATTENDANCE: So many youth!! It was great. We had a lot of good connections between some youth from relatively new families to the church, and being the kickoff everyone made sure to be there tonight. And we also were missing a lot of “regulars,” for one reason or another. I couldn’t really get a feel for the size while we were in there — it looked a lot like it usually does, just a little tighter. There’s something great about a lot of youth packed into a room.
FUN FACTOR: Absolutely non-existent. Well, not completely true. I tossed in a fun YouTube video (see below).
LESSON: This was intense. I was a little bit worried about such a tough lesson. Tonight we started a three-week mini series on what it means to be part of a baptist church. Tonight was baptism. Why did I pick baptism on winter kickoff night? It went really well, and once we got rolling I had a great time. I took a Nooma-esque approach and re-potted a plant while I talked through Colossians 2 and the idea of baptism. I had one of the seniors read the Scripture and alternated with me digging in a little deeper. And it really was intense. I hope it connected with the youth like it connected with me. Next up: communion.
MUSIC: Our creative arts hour (create) doesn’t start ’til next week, so Shawn (music minister) led worship tonight — instead of the youth doing it. Just him and a guitar. It went really well.
VOLUNTEER INVOLVEMENT: Lower than it should be. We’ve got to have more adults to make connections with the youth. Shout-out to my wife for hanging out in the middle of ‘em tonight. Good work :-)