Adam McLane

afterall, I am a youth pastor!


With all this angst and all the busyness going around with the start of Fall stuff and all my other non-StuMin projects… sometimes I need a reminder that I am a youth dude. Case in point, Wednesday night. I asked a few of my “core students” to plan a couple of fun games. So they came up with two games that made this “old guy” gag.

The sick part about this? The kids absolutely loved it. No sooner did I almost throw up than did a middle schooler tell me, “I wish I had volunteered, that looks fun!”

I am not a gross out game specialist. When I worked with Allied Force back in the day we used to love to make kids ralph. It was cool to get a kick to puke. There was nothing quite as fun as seeing some kid toss red atomic fireball mess all over the stage. In fact, the grosser it was the more students seemed to like it.

I describe myself as “post-gross out games.” In general I’m not into it. Yet at the same time I have to deal with the reality that this is fun to the students I am trying to reach.

[Insert ever present debate about entertainment vs. ministry.] All of this to say that I don’t think LF will ever become a group that does tons and tons of gross stuff. Occasionally? Sure, why not? But I firmly believe in the simple principle that “You keep a student with what brought them there.” Until it proves itself wrong, I am going to stick with primarily basing LF around the Bible, worship, and togetherness. I want that to bring our students because I think that is something worth staying for.

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2 responses to “afterall, I am a youth pastor!”

  1. JOE B Avatar
    JOE B

    PA, You are right if you center around the Bible you can’t go wrong. But it is fun everyonce once a while to have a messy game. Like melting some candy bars and pouring them into different diapers and then have the kids scoop it out with their fingers and tell you wat kind of candy bar it is. Or my all time favorite, spitting live crickets for distance. I had the youth pastor’s wife walk out on that one.
    God bless, Joe

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  2. Kerry Avatar
    Kerry

    “I am going to stick with primarily basing LF around the Bible, worship, and togetherness. I want that to bring our students because I think that is something worth staying for.”

    Well said Joe. I often feel like I’m expected to be a cruise director rather than a pastor. That is of course, until there is a “crisis” or some parents come to me wanting me to “fix” thier kid. Then all the games/events/trips that “They” wanted me to do seem pointless, and they expect me to solve whatever the mess is. You know? I desire for my students to fall passionately in love with the one true God, who pursues them with wreckless abandon. I want them to be attracted to God, and what He offers. If we try and compete against MTV we will always loose, we don’t have the tech or the budget (well most of us don’t anyway). But if we connect them to Jesus, then that is something that will stick, something that can never be beaten. And if they (and I) have a little fun along the way, well alllriiiggghhht.

    Sorry to ramble, that’s kind of a hot topic for me.

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