What If?

We all know that temptations to live outside the boundaries of a Christian lifestyle are many for our teens – drug and alcohol abuse, sexual activity, petty crimes and the like are something all of our students must face.  Peer pressure is a strong factor determining behavior in most of their lives.  As a Christian community, one of our responsibilities is to create positive peer pressure, ideally including God in students’ lives as the most important “peer” who influences their behavior.  One way to foster this is to provide opportunities for fellowship outside of our regular structured activities.  In a recent conversation, an idea emerged that it would be really great if we had some things in the youth room that encourage interaction and create a reason to spend time together in a social setting at church.  Wouldn’t it be cool if we could start regular hang-out nights where teens could come and play a game of pool, ping pong, fooze ball, Nintendo 64/Game Cube/Wii, etc. and in the process build relationships with Christian teens and adults?   Spending unstructured, but well-supervised time together can create non-threatening space and opportunity for sharing the gospel with their non-Christian friends or deepening the faith of believers, both in intentional ways and in the conversations that randomly occur when people spend time together. 

To see this vision come to fruition, obviously, we need to have some “stuff” to do.  I mentioned this idea to the youth one Sunday morning, and that evening, a fooze ball table that Stephanie and Teresa Hux found on the side of the road was delivered (God provides).  Many students have been jockeying for playing time before youth activities since we brought it up.   I am still looking for other interactive games and equipment such as a pool table, ping pong table, another fooze ball table, air hokey, video gaming systems, t.v.s, etc.  There are lots of other possibilities; this is certainly not a comprehensive list.  You may have things lying unused around your home that would fit what I’ve been talking about or you may be looking for a place to donate some extra cash to help encourage young people to build God-honoring relationships.  Assuming God provides the equipment (through our church body), we will also need volunteers to chaperone regular fellowship nights, provide food, and possibly provide transportation for students.  If this is an investment you would like to make in our young people, contact me at the church.  We can talk about ways you can get involved.