Friday Night Flood in Review (4/11)

Friday Night Flood tonight was a bit of a mixed bag. There were some really great moments, and some not so great. It was a rather small night for us, as a handful of our normal crowd didn’t show up. It was really all over the place, to be honest. Let me start with the great items.

• One of our teens took the stage to share our message of Truth tonight. He shared a bit of his testimony, a few verses of Scripture that comfort and inspire him, and the song Marvelous Light by Charlie Hall as an encouragement to the crowd. He did a great job of presenting his message.
• Tonight several opportunities for conversations with students opened up and I was able to be available for listening, advice, sounding board services. The atmosphere just clicked (I attribute this to the Spirit at work) tonight and there were some really great moments. A couple highlights: one student who is agonizing over what to do with her overly clingy (past the brink of cute or even appropriate) boyfriend, and a student who shared his theory of how turkeys are going to take over the world (he is in Junior High, after all).
• Had some great guy-time with a handful of students during a couple of basketball games. Nothing earth-shattering, but great teammate-style bonding amongst some of our guys.

But there were a few things that weren’t so great as well.

• There were a few students who really didn’t care about the message tonight. Even telling one of our leaders that he was not talking to them and this was not what they were here for. These are our unchurched crowd, of course, and we can’t (and really don’t) expect them to fall into the “prefect Christian youth group teen” model. But as refreshing as it is to hear their honest thoughts, it is a bit saddening as well to hear their quick dismissal of the message.
• A light fixture was broken in the girl’s bathroom, and even though there were 5 girls in there when it broke, not one of them had any thoughts on how it broke. A bit frustrating.
• I saw our “holy huddle” stand out starkly tonight. Our group was sitting in two different sections of pews (we used the sanctuary for our message time tonight) during break time, and the division between churched and unchurched was unmistakable. Churched teens in one section, unchurched in another. It bothers me a little to see that our teens from within our group are not really reaching out in the smaller ways to our unchurched teens on Fridays. This is due in part I think to a failure on our part as leaders to share our desire with them to see them reach out to their peers.

Like I said, a mixed bag. Not bad, but enough that was not great that should drive us as leaders on to train our teens and raise them up even more committed to impact their peers for Christ.