The Depressing Side of Youth Work...

Interesting Title huh? Well, I was reminded of it again this morning. Yes, there is a depressing side of youth work... And I'm not talking about the fact that Box beat me in ping pong again this week. That wasnt really depressing... It was fun! I had a blast losing to him.

With the formalities out of the way.. let me explain what Im talking about. Articles about youth work/workers put the average time that a youth leader spends at a particular church's youth group is 18 months. Personally, I think its a bit longer...maybe 3-4 years. In a Jr High setting 3 years is 2 full classes and 2 partial. Thats not bad. You get them through 7th and 8th grade...and they go on to the highschool group. While the 8th grade graduation Sunday was always a bit on the sad side.. I dont think this is the most depressing part...

In college, I was a short lived volunteer for Wild Life (The Jr high version of Young Life). But, back then .. college life was too important to me to be able to really build up relationships in the group. So, like I said, it was short lived. However, after I married Caty (The secondary Education teacher to-be). When we moved to Texas in Feb 1994, I talked to her about doing the Jr High group at the new church. She was all for it... So March of 1994, we became volunteer leaders. And the streak begun. Yes, it has been a long time, but thats not the depressing part either.

Having been doing this since 1994, I have a pretty .... unique take on Jr Highers. Simply because I had to, I could tell you all kinds of things about the Power Rangers (A cheap ripoff of the much better VOLTRON!). Hey, it was a big thing 10 years ago! Now, things are different ...and like computers.... everything really does change quite often. But, thats not the depressing part either.

What IS the depressing part? I know thats what you are asking... or at least my one reader (Hi Mom!) is asking by now. (Im sure you are baited now... I think thats some sort of speaking idea. Bait them in on the edge of their seats to make em listen! :) ) Well, I'm going to tell you... But, I have to tell you by what made me think of it this morning.

Needless to say, after almost 13 years of playing with Jr Highers, you tend to form ALOT of relationships. Its wierd to have "Jr Highers" with kids the same age as Marion. But, they do grow up .. go to high school...and college... and yeah..even get married. *Ugh I'm old!* My first youth group we worked with at Westlake Bible Church... when we started in 1994... on a Wednesday Night, we had 5 leaders... and 2 kids. It was in the process of ramping up with a great guy (Who I happen to have grown up with in Arizona) named David Sunukjian. Small World. He was there for 4 or 5 years... and was an awesome speaker like his dad, the Senior Pastor. Then he went off to seminary out in California (after he married one of the youth leaders.... Youth work does have its up-sides too!) Anyway, we grew to about 10 leaders (We were a pretty close group!) and about 80 Jr Highers. For two years, I had one group of guys that eventually became known as the RSS. Roger's Secret Service... it was said that they would take a bullet for me! LOL! I taught them to play Foosball and we played alot of Doom II Deathmatch at midnight. There are some stories there that are probably left for another blog. There were also quite a few gals that liked to hang out with me (I dunno why). One of my closest gals actually married one of my closest guys last December. (Happy One Year!) I've even been through one Jr Higher (that I was actually friends with long before Jr high cause she had older siblings) that died when she was 13.

What can I say.. I ramble. Anyway... so today I was getting on the computer and I pulled up my browser. I pulled down my favorites list... and saw one of my old Jr highers "MySpace" links. I havent talked to her in a couple of months... so I went there to get caught up in what she is doing. Sure enough, shes updated it since I last went there. Its amazing how much of a person's life goes by in two months when shes 18.

So now you know what the depressing part of Youth work is... Its a revolving door of friendships. Thats not as easy as it sounds like. Just imagine... the people you hang out with change completely every 2 years. The closest ones do stick around longer. Which can be good. The last time one of the RSS was in town, we did play a days worth of AOE II and some Doom II .. just for old times sake. But, for every one that keeps up with ya, 10 or more drop off.

I cant wait to get to Heaven and find out what they all went off and did.

Bedrooms vs. Gamerooms

I had a dream Sunday night and actually remembered it today so I figured I'd tell you about it. What a better medium to tell it to you... than in one that you cant interrupt me in. :) I've heard it said that you can only dream about things you have actually seen. So if you think something is made up... its not really.. its just your mind dealing with having to insert something into a "movie" (or "filmstrip" if you are as old as me!) that it can make it into what your brain is trying to say.

As the memory of my dream begins, I'm walking into one of those mega-churches. Im a mega church kid from my youth. You know the type.. Youth groups of 400... Sanctuaries that seat 5000 per service...and the church runs 3 services. You know.. like the North West Mothership. Anyway, I walked in to the sanctuary which really resembled a stadium seating movie theater.

My brain took off out of this setting for a moment and went to my memory of designing my current house. I can remember when I was thinking about the size of each of the rooms... I thought, "Benjamin's bedroom doesnt need to be big, because hes just going to be sleeping there." While he got lucky and got more than a closet, we didnt make an overly large room to hold all of his toys in every way he might want to play with them. We made a descent sized room, that he could keep his stuff in, and them made a large game room that he and his siblings could do the playing in.

When I flipped back to the sermon, I was sitting in the middle and the pastor was describing how the life we live in is like the bedroom of our house. The Gameroom of the house, is the life that God designed for us to live in. When we accept Christ into our lives, God shows us that there is more to life than our beds and a little floorspace to push a car around on. There's a room that big enough for a pool table... or enough room to have friends over and not be cramped.

Bedrooms are safe. People generally knock before entering. Siblings generally stay out of your room. You can do your homework in your own little world. Gamerooms are rowdy and loud. Stuff ends up everywhere.

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. -- John 10:10b (NASB)
or
I came that they may have life, and live it out in the gameroom. -- John 10:10b (Roger's unauthorized version)

Our lives are comfortable in our own little world of our bedroom. Fairly controlled and peaceful. Christ came so that we can experince life through the door of our room. The gameroom that God designed already has the ping pong table, the foosball table, and the bigscreen televisions each for the inferior gaming systems that we all know about. Its loud and the walls are a bit more solid to be able to handle rougher play. (And, Im sure that there is a pink girls version of the game room too... but I cant think of what would be in it!) Either way, its uncomfortable in some respects. But, thats why Christ is with us... to have fun and shake us up so we can really enjoy what he has to offer.

At that point, I think I woke up. For those of you that know me.. 1) Im not the easiest person to wake up and 2) The air up there is awefully thin in the morning. I walked out into the gameroom and well... mine has all kinds of toys everywhere. My gameroom is filled with the effects of Chaos, Mayhem, and Entropy... I mean... Benjamin, Marion, and Zachary.

If thats the gameroom that *I* created (and my children repeatedly destroy)... the one God has designed for me ... well, I cant imagine! But, daily, I have to get up and let Christ lead me out into a rowdy, loud, and "abundant" life.

The Air of Worship!

As Box said in his blog Monday.... "It's Monday and that means it's time to blog." So, here I am... Doing my "duty" (has this become a youth leader requirement?) . After all, I hear Krista even updated her blog. I certainly dont want to be left behind... so, here it goes.

Today, I want to share with you a thought I had (yes.. I have them!). One of my favorite verses in the Old Testament is 2 Samuel 6:22. But, I have rarely ever read AROUND that verse. While I wont go into a full thought process on the entire thing, I would like to point out a few things that jumped out at me. Read 2 Samuel 6:12-23 sometime...

1) David was doing something God wanted... and he was GLAD to do it. (vs. 12)
2) He was dancing... (vs. 14) or as said.... leaping and dancing (vs. 16)
-- 2a) before the Lord... not others!
-- 2b) with all his might. Not just half way.. or to himself.
3) David involved everyone in his experience (vs. 19)
That was cool. Giving a cake of bread to Everyone! That would be so much fun.
4) He uncovered himself in an undistinguished way. (vs. 20)
5) Michal despised him in her heart for what he was doing (vs. 16)

I find myself on a portion of both sides of the coin on this one. I dont think Ive ever celebrated like David... However, I'm not the King, so Its still not socially acceptable to leap and dance in an "undistinguished way" (love the wording for .. Stark Naked!) But, I do like getting into the music when I am running sound! I'm pretty awesome at the "air bass" or the "air drums". Just cause I dance like a white guy, doesnt mean that I cant do it. The question is... Why do I only do it when Im in the back behind the sound board. Its celebrating and worshipping GOD!

However, that being said, I've also been in the position of Michal. I've seen other people worshiping in their way and thought "How wierd is that". So from that perspective...that hit home too. I find it extremely interesting that vs. 23 was added after that. While I'm still working on the whole Slave-girl section of that whole text... I'm sure vs. 23 was added for some reason. But, in that ... First pass mentality, that has to be a bad thing. So, despising someone because of their style of worship cant possibly go over real well with God.

I always have loved worship. Being in a mass of 3,000 highschool students.. or 20,000 college students is AMAZING. (If you EVER get the oppertunity to do that... DONT Pass it up!) Being in our sunday services is almost as amazing... the sheer number of people just sound different. I've played bass in a worship band. Even led it once. Wierd but, absolutely a fun time leading people in worship. But, I have to admit, My favorite way to worship.. is rarely a time I actually feel like *I* am worshipping. I absolutely adore running sound for a worship band. While I'm not leading people in worship... the way I see it, I am helping. Worshipping with a band is a totally different experience than worshipping with a single guy playing an accoustic guitar in a small group. If there is anything that sounds ....wierd.. in the sound.. peoples minds tend to focus on that. So, I see it as my oppertunity, to attempt to take away the techincal distractions during worship so that everyone else can keep their focus on God.

Believe it or not... I think I get the same...feeling...from running sound as I do when singing as one voice in a group of 20,000.