Tonight was a bit more experiential. It was a nice lead-in to what will happen next week (very experiential. Very excited).
Tonight we opened with our weekly episode of From the Laptop, and from there moved into a small Q&A session about Advent. Not surprising, most of our teens (read, all but 2) could not articulate much about Advent at all. Not horrible, as it set us up to really share and educate our group about this season of waiting. From there it was a screening of the Nooma video Noise. If you haven’t seen it, the film really does a great job of challenging viewers to withdraw to solitude and rest, listening to God in the silence.
From there I invited the teens to travel across the hall to two different rooms. One room had several signs up talking about what Jesus’ birth would lead to (a kingdom falling, change throughout the world, etc.), soft Christmas hymns (David Crowder’s O’ Come, O’ Come Emmanuel is phenomenal), several baby items on the table (blankets, toys, diapers, etc.) and several pieces of paper and pencils. In this room students were to spend time reading the statements on the walls, listening to the music, and interacting with the baby items, all the while meditating on how Jesus arrived to earth as an infant. What was it like? Did He wear a diaper like this? Would He have played with this? Then they were to jot down any thoughts they had on the papers. The other room was candle-lit and quiet. There were cards to write prayer requests on, and a manger to then place those requests into. Students were challenged to not only pray for their own request, but for whatever other requests were already in the manger. Very symbolic of handing those requests over to God, even as an infant.
We then rejoined and closed with a few thoughts from me about waiting for Jesus this season. We need to remember how fragile Jesus was, the Creator of the universe placing His safety and care into the hands of His creation. Then we finished with group singing of Away in A Manger and What Child is This?
About half of our crew breezed through the rooms, leaving me to wonder what they might have truly gotten out of hte evening. But the other half really seemed to latch onto it and seemed to get a lot out of their experience. Overall the evening was a good one. My favorite moment though, was probably after the program was finished. A student who is never around on Wednesday nights dropped by to see his parents (they sing in the choir which practices on Wednesday nights), and I had a great opportunity to have a conversation with him that extended deeper than surface level.
Filed under: Creative, H20, Ministry, Ministry Resourcing, Theology, Wednesday Night Live, Youth Ministry | Tagged: advent, experiential, infant, Jesus, lesson, student ministry, teens, Youth Ministry
Ok, forgive me for being the clueless volunteer and let me rant for a second.
WNL was as much about the technique as it was the information. It is so incredibly hard for most teens to not act out to get attention, and even more difficult to be silent. It makes me sad to think that they must not want to meet God after all, since they will not even give it a try. 20 minutes was a long time, but really they were ready to leave in about two. The only reason some of them stayed longer is because they suddenly remembered that they were supposed to sit and pray, not just walk around the room.
I have extremely sensitive hearing and the being in a quiet place takes extra effort on my part to ignore distractions. Some kids exploit any distraction to draw attention to themselves, that is to crack a joke or point the distraction out to anyone else. To me, that means they are not even trying to ignore distractions. I don’t think like a teenager, so maybe I’m reading too much into their actions. But with all of the teaching through the video and Brett’s instructions about how we need to listen for the still voice of God, combined with so many request from the teens for God to speak, how can they not even try and be silent? I guess they were too busy talking to hear the instruction.
Ok, I’m done. I hope God shows me that I am wrong about all of this and the teens are at least interested in Him on some level I can’t see. I’ll also try to have some more patience and not let things like this get to me.
Thanks for sharing your really fine suggestions that I will definitely adapt for use at my church this weekend (and link to my blog). As to Matt’s frustrations, I know that I’ve discovered that teaching teens to appreciate and respect silence takes time. The more you do these sorts of quiet, reflective experiences, I find, the more the youth get used to it and come to see it as valuable and take advantage of the opportunity. As you say, it takes patience.
Peace,
Brian
i too have discovered that teaching silence takes great time. in fact, tonight we did an even deeper reflective/meditative evening (the post will go up later tonight) and out of the seven teens there, only 2 or 3 really engaged the meditation and contemplation.
we are planning on continuing to incorporate more and more contemplative practices into our ministry, and as we do, it is my prayer that their learning styles are engaged, and that their own maturity and spiritual growth is stretched. Patience, indeed.