thou shalt not kill...the junior high kids.

The fifth commandment, as you may remember: "You shall not kill."

Temptation, thy name is Junior High Retreat.

We had our annual fall Junior High retreat this past weekend, and it was one of the most frustrating experiences I've had in youth ministry. All Sunday afternoon and most of yesterday I spent thinking about why, and about what we can do differently. I'm wondering if some of my frustrations are inherent to youth ministry in this time and place (I suspect strongly that is the case, actually). And I wonder what the church ought to do given the particular challenges youth and families face.

I should say, right off the bat, that I really like junior high kids. It was definitely an epoch in my own life I'd rather not repeat, but I think that only adds to my fondness for them. It's a hard time, and I think most adults (while acknowledging their own general misery at that age) underestimate how painful a time it can be. In spite of their difficulties, though, junior high kids are still more likely to be, in short, kid-like: they can be much more enthusiastic, interested, and engaged than high schoolers, who are generally occupied looking way too cool for whatever activity is going on at the moment. So I like these kids. I'm predisposed to enjoy spending time with them.

Unless they are, to be short again, a collective pain in the ass.

We had a few very specific problems on this retreat. Let's list them here, shall we?
1. We (the staff who ran it) were not nearly as organized as we should be, or normally are. There are a few reasons for this. Those can be easily changed.
2. Cell phones on retreat are the work of the devil. More on this later.
3. The big, not-sure-what-to-do-about-it problem, the one infecting not only the junior high kids on this retreat but, I believe, our whole blooming society: entitlement. I deserve because I am.

About problem number one: we can fix that. We've been in transition mode with retreat planning, and hopefully this retreat demonstrated that we need to finish up that transition, pronto. I'm not much concerned about that one.

About problem number two: yea, verily, though indeed there will be some weeping and gnashing of teeth about it, we will be banning cell phones on retreat. A letter will be going out within the next two weeks to all families explaining this, well in advance of any retreat coming up on the calendar. We had limited cell phone usage to free time, but it turns out that even that created problems, because the kids were not really present at the retreat once the cell phones came on. This group of kids never bonded, at all, and although I strongly suspect this particular group would have had challenges with that anyway, the cell phone thing killed it.

I'm sure there will be some parents who will FREAK OUT that they can't contact their kids at any given moment to tell them something really, crucially, life-alteringly important, like...oh, wait. None of the cell phone contact had anything to do with that. We will just have to return to the caveman days, like when I was young, when you had to contact the chaperone if you needed to speak with your kid. Believe it or not, parents, kids survived those retreats. In fact, your kid stands a much better chance of surviving at a retreat precisely if they don't bring their cell phones, because if they do, I might KILL THEM. (Oops. Fifth commandment issues again.)

So that one will be a bit tricky, but we can do it.

As to problem number three: I just don't know. What really discourages me is this: that the kids who behaved well are that way because their parents teach them to be that way. And, conversely, that the kids who were horrendous were so for the same reason. But that group in the middle, that group that could go either way depending on the strength of their peers to drag them along: the church seems to be making no difference whatsoever in the minds of that group. This was a retreat on the beatitudes, for pete's sake. CALM DOWN AND BE MEEK FOR A SECOND, KID.

I've said it before, and I believe it, that youth ministry especially (all ministry, really) is about planting seeds, and you don't always see the results of that. But the strength of these kids' negativity about absolutely everything ("this food sucks," "Why are we here?" "I hate this," "my parents just make me come," "this is dumb," etc.) is hard to overcome.

I'll get over my pessimism eventually. But for now, I'm feeling rotten about youth ministry. Not a good feeling.

Except for one thing: yesterday I went to my alma mater to preach at chapel. It went well. And one of the chapel attenders was a kid from my previous congregation who, honestly, was a pain in the ass in junior high. (For quite different reasons than I've outlined above, but still.) And now, he is an enthusiastic, thoughtful, funny, generous, intellectually curious college student aiming for a religion major, wanting to teach theology.

I need to cut out a picture of him and post it somewhere prominent for a few weeks, I think.