Thursday, January 8th, 2004 - Districts '04

I headed off to Green Bay on a bus full of middle-schoolers this past weekend as a leader for the Districts youth conference. It is for middle and high school kids all over the state of Wisconsin and is where I became a Christian 4 years ago. I had a group of 5 guys who were all friends with the 6 guys next door to us in the hotel whom Case was leading, so Case and I collaborated to hang with all 11 of our guys for the weekend. This was quite a shift from the college ministry that I have been accustomed to over the last year and a half.

Like any typical youth gathering, our guys basically lived off of Mountain Dew and pizza. Our group was unique in the fact that only one of the guys actually went to the youth group; the other 10 were his friends, mostly from the hockey team, whom he brought along for the weekend. It seemed that they came from non-Christian backgrounds, and their main focus for the weekend was not on God but on having a blast by getting away from their parents.

I didn't know any of this before going into the weekend - I just learned as I went along. One thing became clear very quickly: all of our guys have ADD when they are all sugared up and at a conference with 2,000 other people. They made noise-makers and tried to leave during the prime time sessions, went to the bathroom or left the room during breakout sessions, and were only excited at the ideas of humiliating or kicking the crap out of each other. I don't mean to say that this happens often or is the norm by any means - our group was just truly unique.

I did get to tell the basic Gospel message of Jesus Christ during one of the breakouts, but I don't think that they really understood. It didn't take Case or I very long to realize that these guys were unlikely going to take that revelation with them after this weekend. Thus, I made it my goal to basically make the time these guys had really fun, with hopes that at least it may make them want to come back again next year when they are more mature and might listen to the speaker. And a good time we all had!

The most awesome thing that God did through all of this was give me a glorious peace of mind. It didn't bother me that the guys were interested in everything but God or that they didn't ever stop talking or running around longer than 5 minutes. I didn't mind when we had to revert focus to just having fun with them instead of trying to explain Jesus. I was totally okay with always watching out for the guys during prime times and not being able to get lost in worship or dive into the depths of the speaker. It was a whole new way to worship God - by serving these guys for a weekend and praying that they will come again in the future.

I did make one fairly big mistake the first night. Just my 5 guys and I were in our room around 1 a.m., and one of the guys said, "Hey, have you guys ever heard of spooning?" Only 1 guy had heard of it, but none of them knew what it was, so they asked me. My mistake was to explain to them that spooning is when you lay on your side and someone else lays on their side right next to you. I also told them that you only spoon with the same sex until you're married. That was all they needed to hear before they started spooning all over the room for about 3 hours, and they would continue to spoon throughout the weekend. I think their record was 10 guys on 1 bed (they're small). They even toasted to spooning at our last meal of the weekend. Wow. Oops. Note to self....

My favorite part of the weekend was when a bunch of the guys and I were just hanging out in one of the hotel rooms, and when the topic came up, they asked me if I ever drank or smoked before. I told them no, that I never was interested in that stuff because I'd rather honor God with my body (1 Cor 6:19-20). If anything I said (other than spooning) affected them all weekend, this was it, judging by their expressions. I am really hoping that I can go back as a leader next year and have these same guys - we had such a blast and I'm so excited if I have the chance to go deeper with them then.

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