Back to the Future

February 9, 2007 by
Filed under: Religion, Youth 

This weekend, I go Back to the Future – reliving part of my life.  How?  I’m helping out with Sr. High Youth Group at church.

Back in my youth (as I’ve said before many times), I was heavily involved in church.  Part of that included being probably the most regular member of the Sr. High youth group.  My freshman year, I was probably the only one who wasn’t a junior or senior in the group – we didn’t have an Associate Pastor at the time so some of the more recent young adults were running the group.  I think we had maybe 4 or 5 people.  As I got older, we got a great Associate Pastor who had youth ministry as one of his specialties.  We then grew to a solid 8 to 10 by the time I graduated (this in a church that drew about 200 attendees at Sunday services).  I enjoyed going every Sunday evening.  My parents had it easy – the Associate Pastor’s manse was around the corner from our house so I always had a ride to and from church (or actually to church and from Friendly’s after youth group).

My youth group involvement grew into becoming a deacon, attending the Presbyterian Youth Triennium in 1986, and being a Youth Advisory Delegate to the Synod.  One of the most fun weeks of my life happened when I was working at Camp Johnsonburg as a CIT.  One summer, I got to be the 3rd counselor in a work camp unit, with my Associate Pastor as a co-counselor and kids from my youth group in the unit.  Helping to serve communion (deacons were allowed to do that back then) at Triennium and at work camp were very meaningful for me.  This left me sufficient engaged with the church that I headed to college planning to make either religion or computer science my major (with the other my minor).

Then some stuff happened that I’ve written about before and I left the church.  However, it was my ties to youth group experiences – particularly camp – that drew me back almost 20 years later.
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So …. this weekend I’ll be volunteering with the CHAOS (Christians Hanging Around On Sundays) Senior High youth group at Lawrenceville Presbyterian Church.  Alicia from my church, camp, and who worked with me leading the Reconnecting with Faith retreat (she’s the redhead at the left end of the group photo below) talked to me about getting more involved at church and suggested helping out with this group.

I admit to some fears.  While I used to work with youth once upon a time, at the time I more or less WAS a youth.  It’s been 20 years, and my youth relational skills are gonna be very rusty.  I don’t have any reason to have contact with kids of any age on a regular basis.  (I know, be yourself and the kids will respond.)  The good news is that the other youth advisors that I know are great people, and I’m sure somebody will be able to backstop me if I falter.

Wish me luck!  If it works out, you may see more posts here about this group.  If not, well, you’ll probably see an “it didn’t work out” post and that’ll be that.

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Comments

One Comment on Back to the Future

  1. Back to the Future, part 3 : Mark Time on Tue, 20th Jan 2009 10:36 am

    2. […] A while back I wrote of getting involved in the youth group at church.  Two weeks ago I attended the Sunday evening meeting for the first time, and it involved so little interaction that I wasn’t really able to figure out whether or not I wanted to continue. […]

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