Ladies and Gentlemen, it's go time!

I WILL NOW BE POSTING STUFF ABOUT WHAT'S GOING ON IN YOUTH GROUP!

YYYYYEEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!

So, on Friday Hillcrest had our Sr. Youth kick-off meeting at our intern's house, with a bonfire, announcements, mixer, s'mores and games.

It was great to see familiar faces that were once in Jr. Youth, and new ones that would be coming to Sr. Youth regularly.
The evening was enjoyable and (dare I say it?) fun. 
The mixer I lead was "would you rather" where I would ask a question (like: would you rather be a dragon, or own a dragon - how would YOU answer this question?) and they would go to one side of the room or the other, and then they would have to answer another question in those groups (like: what was the highlight of your summer?).

Before the Mixer, our Youth Pastor announced that we would be regularly meeting at the church at the same time (7pm-9pm) by the 18th, cause next weekend we're going on a retreat to Kedleston Gospel Camp.

After the mixer, some of us played Apples to Apples

and others played Uno.

ps., the red cup only housed ice tea. 

the time together lasted till 9:20pm-ish, when a few of the youth's patents showed up and/or to drive them home or Joe's place.

THAT WAS SR. YOUTH KICK OFF.
TODAY, WAS YOUTH LEADERS TRAINING.

That was also enjoyable, also hard.

Despite the availability for cookies, brownies, loafs, coffee, and tea; it still did not soothe the fact we all had to go through the hour of P2P, or 'plan to protect.' -- FYI I am in no way discrediting or bashing the program 'plan to protect,' it's just the concept of cramming all these heavy topics, like physical, emotional, and sexual abuse into one INTENSE hour that gets to some of us -- However, we made it through and we ended the training time with David going over what the Sr. and Jr. youth groups look like program wise and our focuses on what we want to see happen in the youth group; and myself going through how to run a small group - or what our youth group is calling 'pods.'

Yes, this is what I think of too

I adapted Ken Moser's "How to Run Small Groups Without Study Questions" program sheet, and made it applicable to when you do and don't have study questions to work with, as well as the things to be aware of in girls groups verse guys groups. By the way, there are some free resources on the effective youth ministry website anyone can download/print when it comes to ANYTHING youth ministry related.

Well, that's all for now. Our Jr. Youth group kick-off will be happening Wednesday and the Fall Retreat to Kedleston will happen from Friday to Sunday!

Keep Hillcrest in your prayers and until till the next time, TTFN (tah tah for now!)

~To God be the glory