Youth Group 1

Approached quantitatively today would have been a complete bust.  One youth from the church in Fall River showed up for Youth Group this afternoon following the service.  Normally this would have sent me into a whirlwind of telling myself that I'd somehow failed as a youth director.  However, I decided to just "go with the flow," which for a type A personality is severely challenging.

Instead of having a newspaper fashion show--followed by swing dancing lessons I ended up having an awesome conversation with a particularly awesome 8th grader.  What amazed me the most was the vast changes that have occurred in society from when I was in 8th grade (far too long ago to pleasantly thing about) to today.  The experience of the contemporary 8th grade female is WAY different.  Not different in a decidedly bad way--just different.  For example, today's eight graders have cell phones, they are completely comfortable with cussing in front of their teachers (n.b not this particularly awesome 8th grader), and they are dealing with things that no 12-13 year old should have to be handling.  What amazed me the most was how graciously this young person was handling the life of an adolescent.  Let's face it, being a preteen kind of stinks.  You're too old to want to be considered a "child" but not yet old enough to be categorized as a full fledged teenager.  It's an awkward time in life.

As strange as middle school might be, I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the exciting life of competitive cheerleading.  It's a whole lot more challenging and athletic than I had ever pictured (n.b perfect example of my temporary failure to withhold judgement).  There's a lot of working out and conditioning, throwing, lifting….all in all incredibly similar to the higher levels of competitive synchronized skating.

I learned some things today that I would not have if the day had gone as planned:

1) I would suck as an 8th grader in 2014
2) Cheerleading is a sport and is challenging and takes skills that I don't have
3) Youth are really awesome and engaging when you give them an opportunity to shine (I already knew this but it's worthing including again)
4) Intergenerational conversations are insightful and meaningful
5) Young people feel incredibly over scheduled and overbooked
6) I can learn a lot from deeply listening to young people.