Well, I'm sitting here at Lake Junaluska on our seniors (high school not retired people) retreat, which is probably my favorite trip we do every year, and I've been taking a look back at this summer. Overall, this has definitely been a good one, maybe one of the best that I've experience as youth director (which this summer makes a total of 9 with Lakewood UMC), but it has been a difficult one too.
Choir Tour was fantastic. I guess, as with any trip, drama ensues but the drama was so low key compared to some years that outside of the land of the females, no one really noticed anything. It was great going out west, working in a different kind of place, seeing that beautiful Arizona landscape, and most of all, watching the youth share their worship service. I have really been proud of the direction that the choir has taken under Jeff's leadership. The shift from performance to worship service has taken some time and I think it is really beginning to pay off a great deal. To have a whole "musical" joined around the idea of communion and have the songs, skits, readings, and such all work was impressive. I think that our emphasis on the table being a place of equality and grace is taking root a bit and that gets me excited about the coming year.
The Bible Studies this summer were good and I enjoyed watching Jennifer (my summer intern) put them together and lead them. She really has a heart for God and it comes out in her studies. Plus, she is just really good with so many of the girls, and I'm glad she has been here this summer. The youth really respond to her and love to talk to her and having more adults for the youth to connect with is always a good thing.
Mystery Weekend was a lot of fun. Stone Mountain laser show, Six Flags, rafting the Ocoee; we had a good time, things went smoothly and we took a good mix of regular attenders and folks a little more on the fringe which was great and I think helped pull some of those folks in a bit more.
Our Tuesday fun nights seemed to go pretty well. We had good groups for the excursions to the Suns game and Harry Potter IMAX (and only one or two slightly annoyed church people who though going to see Potter was tantamount to worshipping the devil). The Tuesday night we stayed in and played hockey and such had a huge turnout so that was maybe more surprising. Sometimes staying in and doing something cheap is exactly what you need to do.
Youth Week last week was, as usual, a blur. Blizzard Beach, Ichetucknee River, Rock Climbing, working at Food Bank, Hanna Park Beach trip, evening worship services, Gutter Gobble, Dessert Contest - basically I got up at 6am, got to church by 6:30am, and stayed until 11pm on most days. Fun, exciting, and exhausting, especially when combined with the dumb decision by yours truly to stay up after I got home every night to finish the final Harry Potter book. The trips were great with good turnouts, the band we put together seemed to work pretty well especially for playing older stuff (Third Day, Waiting, Smalltown Poets, early Caedmon's Call) and I really enjoyed playing with David, Brandon, Jamey, and Abby (with special bass appearance by David Smith), and though I went long on the discussions, they seemed to go pretty well. We focused on the nature of freedom as a follower of Christ and looked at Matthew 5-7 as a kind of handbook of freedom where Jesus seeks to help the Jews understand how God is actually already working and how they can join in by ridding themselves of unnecessary baggage (hatred, anger, lust, revenge, power struggles, etc.).
And now SORHeads and there's no way I could complain about that. Five days up in the cool mountains of North Carolina with a bunch of fun people. Not bad at all. So a pretty good summer overall. To be continued...
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