The Youth Event Nobody Has Ever Seen

I got the idea for this post from Tim Schmoyer's "63 Youth Ministry Issues I Hope You Cover". This weekend, we are doing an event that is probably the most unique event that I've done since I've been in youth ministry over ten years.

We have an annual campout retreat that we do every fall that has evolved into a family event. We encourage our youth to bring their parents. This is a great opportunity for us to have a youth event without cutting into the much-needed family time that many families desperately need. It also gives families an opportunity to study the Bible together as a family. Now, that's not where this event is unique.

This year, we will be doing something a bit different at our family campout. You see, in our area, there was famous Comanche Indian raid that occurred in 1836 during the Texas Revolution (Texas was fighting for its independence from Mexico). The raid occurred just about 2 miles from the state park where we will be camping. There is also a cemetery that is walking distance from our campground where some of the people who were involved in that incident are buried. In the incident, a 9-year old girl named Cynthia Ann Parker was captured and eventually married a Comanche chief. Her son Quanah Parker was the last great Comanche chief and was influential in teaching the Comanche to adopt the white way of life and also became a wealthy statesman, friend of several US Presidents, and even a minister of the gospel (of sorts-see link above).

So, Friday night, of the campout, we are going to go on a hike through the woods (by lantern) and arrive at the cemetery. One of our parents will be in period costume dressed as James Parker whose neice was captured in the Indian raid and who organized many searches for a number of years until she was recovered more than 20 years later. This "ghost story" will introduce the kids to a piece of our local history. Then we will examine the story from different angles and look at the biblical themes in it. The biblical aspects of the story and the biblical stories that parallel this one will be discussion fodder for our Bible studies.

I know most of us would rather teach the Bible than anything, which is good. But I think we often sell our students short by not teaching them the history of their communities. While the Bible has a lot of great role models and examples of character, often times there are people in their communities whom God has used in similar ways.

So what are the youth events you've done that you could call unique?

Do you think an event of this nature is selling the kids short on good biblical teaching?

Top 10 Ways to Kill a Weekend Youth Retreat

We just finished up our annual fall campout/retreat. This has become an annual event for us. While very little went quite as planned, it was still an amazing weekend. I started to evaluate what made this weekend a success and came up with ten things we didn't do to make this trip successful. So, here are ten things youth workers do to ruin a weekend retreat.

1. Micro-plan every second. Part of what makes a retreat work is there is downtime. The idea of the word retreat is that we are retreating from our normal lives. If our retreat weekend is busier than our normal life, we will create more stress and fatigue rather than giving an escape from them. Have a schedule, but make it loose and allow room for flexibility.

2. Allow/encourage technology. I butted heads with several of my students this weekend who were texting back and forth as well as playing video games. One student even insisted that her parents would be upset if she made herself "inaccessible" and turned her phone off. But what is the point of getting away if we stay connected to the real world? I'm not saying everything in the world is bad, but we limit our availability to the Holy Spirit by keeping one foot back home.

3. Make it all about fun. Any retreat experience has to have a recreational aspect to it. We go camping for ours. However, if fun is the only aspect, students aren't challenged and probably won't learn anything. Make sure fun has a point.

4. Don't offer any new experiences. We have one place we have gone the last 4 years for our fall retreat. However, each year has had a different theme and different activities. Also, there has been a different focus each year. This year we looked at the history of the area we were in and a famous Indian raid that happened in 1836. We tied the story of the pioneers to our own spiritual journey of being strangers in a foreign land.

5. Go to a big city with lots of attractions/distractions. This probably goes without saying, but I wanted to throw it in. I don't know if people in small towns ever go to big cities for retreats, but it just seems counterproductive. Even in a town of 18,000 people, there are a ton of distractions. And the majority of our students live in the country in homes surrounded by woods. Yet they spend the majority of their time playing video games and talking on Facebook. Giving them more distractions from an urban environment squelches the purpose of the retreat.

6. Provide luxury accomodations. Part of a retreat is helping students realize how good they have it. Doing your retreat in a 4-star hotel isn't doing them any favors. The gospel is something that grows out of simplicity and hardship rather than the plush and lavish things of life.

7. Try to lead the whole thing yourself. I've been with great youth workers and I've been with terrible ones. The latter were probably more because I failed to train them or they insisted it was my job to do everything. i.e. What do you get paid to do? But I've found that on youth events where I tried to do everything myself, I was stressed out the whole time and couldn't really enjoy the experience. Have someone to plan your meals. Have someone plan some recreational time. Have someone plan your Bible study times. Don't use your free time preparing for your next session. Use that time to bond with your kids and your youth workers.

8. Do it in a familiar setting. We have a fantastic camp/retreat center less than 10 miles from our church. Our kids go to our district summer camp there for one week every year. I've tried to schedule other events out there and they are always poorly attended. Many of our students literally live closer to the camp center than they do to our church. There is no mystique about going out there for a 2-day retreat. Try to plan your retreats in a place that isn't "old hat".

9. Don't give an opportunity for a spiritual response. One thing I try to do when planning every youth event is ask myself "What do I want to accomplish with this event?" So try to focus the activities and studies towards some sort of spiritual response. This year's response was to live with more of a kingdom purpose. Without a spiritual response, it would have been just a campout in the woods.

10. Expect a certain kind of spiritual result. Remember, I'm saying these things will kill your retreat. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that we shouldn't design the events, activities, and Bible studies toward a certain spiritual focus (#9). But when we expect a certain result, we put God in a box by insisting that what we want to accomplish and what he wants to accomplish are one and the same. Maybe you're hoping that one guy will quit making such poor choices or that one girl will finally have the strength to break up with her boyfriend. Maybe there's another student you hope will finally put his faith in Christ? When we expect these things to happen and they don't it kills all the great things that DID happen during the weekend. A weekend is not necessarily a miserable failure because we were hoping for a particular breakthrough in a particular situation and didn't get it..

What have been the things that have destroyed some of the retreats you have been on? What things really make them better?

Why I'll be Showing a Blatantly Non-Christian Movie at Youth Group

Some time earlier this year (I think around October), my wife and I had some rare, kidless downtime and found ourselves in Tyler (the nearest town with several decent-sized movie theatres) with a few hours to kill and a few extra bucks in our pockets. Being that we were an hour's drive from home and had just showed up at the theatre hoping to catch something good, we realized we didn't want to wait 45 minutes to see the new Sandra Bullock film. So we opted to see "The Invention of Lying" which started in just a few minutes. We had heard no reviews about the movie, but with a cast that included Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey, and appearances by Rob Lowe and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, it looked promising to say the least. Two hours later, I found my heart and mind in a tug-of-war wrestling with a number of ideas that had been presented in a very different way. Because of the response it created in me, I immediately realized I had to show it to my youth group and allow them to be presented with the same questions that were presented to me during the film.

I did not include a link to a movie review of this movie because the opinions surrounding this movie are as varied as the number of people who've written them. I didn't want you to read a Christian's conservative review blasting the film as "blasphemous" nor did I want an extremely open-minded review praising its satire, which many people found just plain offensive. If you have not seen the film, I would urge you to resist temptation and see it without reading anything about it beforehand. I will say that the film was co-written, co-directed, and starred in by professed atheist and British comedian Ricky Gervais, famous for his role in original British version of the hit comedy series, The Office (the pre-cursor to the wildly popular American version). Without giving away too much information on the movie (you can google all the movie reviews you like), I can say that "The Invention of Lying", whether by intent or not, makes a case for atheism much the same way "Facing the Giants" or "Fireproof" makes a case for putting faith in God. In the course of the story, this movie takes numerous less-than-subtle stabs at Christianity, Jewish traditions, and the whole idea of faith in general. It is rated PG-13 for language, some sexual material, and one drug reference. So why will I be showing it to my youth group after it is released on DVD January 19th? Here is why.

1. I think we learn more about ourselves and what we believe from people who disagree with us, than simply by listening to people who are echoing our own thoughts. As I left the theatre after seeing this movie--while my blood was boiling because many parts of me felt like my faith, which I hold ver dear, was under attack--I began to process the argument that had been presented to me through this subversive, yet light-hearted medium. For me, it wasn't something that caused me to question my faith, but rather solidify it.

2. We must be challenged in order to grow. The metaphor of a muscle in the human body being broken down in order to be rebuilt in a bigger, stronger way has become cliche, but it holds true. If you have ever been through a physically strenuous workout, whether running, or lifting weights, or some other form of exercise, or if you've exerted yourself physically more than usual, the next day, you will find you will be quite sore--sometimes in places you didn't realize you had! That is because using our muscles excessively causes them to break down, then rebuild themselves in a stronger manner. Likewise, many houseplants (from the way I understand it) will not really start to grow, until their roots have found their way to the sides of the pot. So challenging my students will cause them to ask some really important questions and in the proper environment we will be able to answer their questions.

3. Creating a bubble for our Christian kids does not paint a clear picture of reality. I've known many people in youth ministry (and I have been there myself) who feel it is our job as youth leaders to shield our precious children from all the reprehensible stuff out there in the world. We encourage them to only listen to Christian music (especially on youth trips) and only watch "G" or "PG" rated films. And while this can work in the vacuum of youth group meetings or even a week-long camp, it's not realistic to assume that our students follow these same ideals when they are not at youth group functions. Now, does that mean I show the latest Quentin Tarantino movie at our next movie night? Absolutely not. However, our job as youth workers is not to shield them from the world, but rather to give them the means to adapt to the culture they are in and to do that from a faith-based standpoint.

We've all heard the stories about the student who goes off to college and find his faith challenged by some philosophy professor who thinks Christianity is all a bunch of garbage, or the other college student who is too busy partying to remain true to his Christian beliefs that may or may not have ever truly been his own (as opposed to his parents). I feel that if youth workers are to be effective, we have to get our heads out of the sand and be aware of the culture our kids live in and give them the tools to help solidify their faith.

Do you agree with this approach? Would you show this movie to your kids? What similar things have you done in your ministry to challenge the way kids think?

The Way It Ought to Be

I remember my first Christian concert. It was 1987 at Reunion Arena in Dallas. We saw Twila Paris, and a couple of other people, but the headliner was Petra. We were on the floor...13th row if memory serves correctly right in front of a towering wall of speakers and I had no idea what to expect. They all came out in silver jumpsuits and big hair (it was the 80s, remember?) and blew our ears out much like Marty McFly at the beginning of Back to the Future. Ever since, I've been to dozens of Christian concerts both for my own enjoyment and as attempts to get my youth group plugged into music that wasn't mired down with messages of sensuality, physical perfection, and the "do whatever you want" mentality of our culture.


But somewhere in all the loud guitars, lights and sold out arenas there runs a danger of something getting lost. With all the T-shirts and shameless plugs for the upcoming album Christian music begins to look a lot like non-Christian music which in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. But I've been to many shows where the artists didn't speak much or talk about what their relationship to God meant to them. At these shows, the band came out, sang and played for 2 hours, and we all went back to buy shirts and CDs on the way out. But last Saturday, Oct. 11, I experienced a breath of fresh air amidst all the tyranny of contemporary Christian music. I went to Christ United Methodist Church in College Station, TX to see Building 429 with opening acts After Edmund and Addison Road. The experience was as spiritually enlightening as it was pleasing to the ears.


We paid a modest price of $10 for our tickets and were in a church that seated about 1500 that was maybe 2/3 full. So there was plenty of room to get up by the stage and get very close to the performers. After Edmund had done a show the previous spring here in Palestine and our kids were so crazy about them...they are a great band and put on a great show. But when the guys in the band realized that our kids had been at the Palestine, their memories were jogged and they remembered them. It was so nice to see this band who was touring across the country to remember a bunch of jr. high kids from Palestine. Jason Roy, the lead singer of Building 429 served as emcee for the whole show. Many times the headliners stay tucked away until the big finale, but he wanted us to experience God's love and worship him at that concert. So the concert was about Christ, not about them. They also did a few worship songs that were not orignally written or performed by them to lead the congregation in worship. I wasn't really surprised, but yet, I wasn't expecting it either. I mean nobody is going to be able to go to the back table and find the Building 429 CD with the Matt Redman song on it--it doesn't exist. But their heart was for worship and community and I felt that superceded any agenda for record sales.


I realize that record sales are a small portion of what funds these cross-country behemoths as they go from town to town with huge trucks filled with lights and sound equipment and in order for them to do what God has called them to do, they have to make money. However, it's good to know that amidst all the bright lights, record sales, touring, merchandise, and everything else that bands are still doing the Lord's work by lifting people's spirits and leading them to the throne of God.
(Below, my youth group kids with members of After Edmund)