A Pick-Me-Up Monday

I love Jr. High students. Yes, they sometimes don't wear deodorant and they forget to shower regularly. Yes, they can be very awkward. And yes, their small attention span makes it hard to keep their attention longer than 30 seconds.....but....I love them! I don't know why God has wired me this way, but I'm glad He did.

We had our kickoff for fall programming yesterday, and it was awesome! There was a lot of energy and a lot of students! We had a biggest crowd ever, the students were excited to be back at LIFT. Cody (the youth pastor) and I decided to start the year of with a little bit of vision casting for our students and what we want our student ministry to be about this year. As we thought about what to name our series, the term WEIRD came up. It just seemed perfect for our students and what we want to accomplish. We want to create an environment where students can come and feel like they belong. The way we presented it to our students is that the normal thing to do in life is to surround yourself with people just like you and can offer you something in return. The weird thing is to let everyone in your circle of friends no matter who they are!

Yesterday after I was able to talk to our students about this idea of us being "Weird," we had them break out into groups and come up with ideas to make new students feel welcome in LIFT. We gave each group a poster board and a sharpie and told them to write down their ideas....and here is a list of things we got from them....I guess this is what we get for giving middle schoolers a sharpie and blank poster board. Remember, these ideas were supposed to make students feel welcome at LIFT.

- Say “Ello’ Governor” and run over them with a British taxi.

- Throw them out a window.

- Creepily stare until they talk.

- Beat the living snot out of them

- Taco

- Hold their hand

Now if these were the only ideas we got from our students, I would say we would be in big trouble (and so would anybody who decided to visit LIFT), but these were the minority. I just had to write them down because they made me laugh! I have another list about 5 times bigger with great ideas about making first time visitors feel like they belong.

Its a Monday, and so that means you just try to get through it the best you can because they drag on forever! I hope this helps a little and gives you a quick laugh like it gave me. Love you guys!

Shunned by a Sixth Grader

Last Sunday was our last Jr. High program for the summer. We tried something a little different than last year with our middle school students. Last year, we canceled programming altogether to give our leaders a break, but this year we decided to just do a scaled down version of our regular program. We didn't have worship or small groups. All we did was play a couple of games, taught a lesson, took communion, and did some group discussions. We called this summer program LIFT Remix. From an outside perspective, someone might think that Remix failed, because we only had about 50% of our students attend. But to be honest I thought it went pretty well!

Even though our number of students were down, we had several new students that started attending during the summer. That isn't the weird thing...the weird thing was that they kept coming back! Our usual students were doing a great job of befriending new comers and it was really cool to see.

I tell you all of this because we had one student our last week named Moses or Mo for short. He was a shorter kid and didn't talk very much. He was probably the youngest student we had there that Sunday because he hadn't moved up to 6th grade yet, but he still came. I tried to connect with him by asking his name, what school he went to, and if he knew anyone at Remix. Quietly he said no, and then just walked away. During Remix we had a time where we wanted all of our students to stand up and high-five ten people. As I was going around high-fiving like a mad man, I saw Mo so I went straight for him. I lifted my hand in the air...I had perfect high-five form and said, "Hey Mo! Give me some!" He looked straight at me and turned around and walked away. He shunned me in front of everyone. I was standing on stage when this happened and everyone saw a tiny tween totally ignore me....how did I recover? I stood there with a blank look on my face and then realized what I looked like. I shook it off and said to the other students, "Eh...that happens sometimes." We laughed about it and moved on.

I always tell people the reason I love Jr. High ministry is because even though I'm weird they still think I'm cool. The other day, I felt like the most uncool person in the world when Mo shunned me in front of everyone. Later I tried talking to Mo but he never opened up...but I didn't give up. I kept prying and prying for him to just talk with him. I really hope I didn't come off really creepy and annoying but I just wanted him to feel like he belonged. After about 10 minutes he finally said something to me, but what he said took me by surprise. I always thought that some students were just "loners" (students who go off by themselves and they don't like being in social circles. They like to be alone) and they liked being that way. Mo was a typical "loner." You could see it from a mile away, but what he said threw me. After playing some air hockey with him, he looked up to me and said, "I hate being the new guy." Then he did his usual and just walked away.

It killed me when I heard those words. This semester in our ministry we are making a big push for our students to make people like Mo feel welcomed and like they aren't just "the new guy." In Ephesians, Paul talks about how Christians have been adopted in God's family, and in a family people are (well they are supposed to be) loved and a part of something bigger than themselves.

This is kind of a random post, but it is just something that has been on my mind so I thought I'd share it with you guys. I guess the question for us is, "Are we making people feel like they belong in the family?" Who is your Mo that feels like "the new guy"?