Youth Stories - February 11th 2025

My standards for events are not always high. I told one of my friends that my sole metric for success at this year's Super Bowl party was that Rocky does not get beat up. The reason being was that last year's Super Bowl party he did. It was innocent enough. Boys were goofing off and one thing led to another and one student felt like the rough housing had gotten too rough and so fists flew. No one was truly hurt, but it was still unpleasant nevertheless. This year, zero fights. Great success.

Success is hard to measure in a job that deals with incorporeal things like morality, ethics, and spirituality. There is no hard data and even things like attendance doesn't demonstrate if the church is doing what it's supposed to be doing. Because of that it's hard sometimes to know if I'm doing a good job. I can't always speak to the efficacy of my work, but I can speak to its complexity. I sat in a lengthy meeting about an event that transpired over 8 months ago. It was a well documented issue and after copious amounts of discussion, the issue seemed to be more or less resolved. Then, due to a lapse in judgement on my end, conversations continued. Time is this sort of funny thing that you can spend so little of it making a choice and then so much of it regretting that same choice. An errant word or phrase can sometimes take on a life of its own and before you know it you've birthed a monster from a fleeting moment. I spent many hours working though and getting worked over as a result of something that I should have spent more time on.

Some of the other complexities that came this week was that I ran an axe-throwing league, led a Bible study for young adults, taught at our AWANA program for fourth through sixth graders, preached in the Book of James, taught at a Christian club that meets that the local high school, helped a student move, and did five hours of work on a Greek exam that revolved around the word "the". I also got to hear a lesson being taught from one of my former students in Medford. It was his first time teaching like that, and he did better on his first time then I did on mine. How do you measure success in all of that? There are pro and cons in a week like that. If there was a huge pros and cons list for our life, then I think all of the meaning is lived in the margins. I think I need to learn to stop keeping score.

I really don't care much about football, but I always host a church Super Bowl party. Some are invested and come for the game, others for the food, and others come just to be somewhere around people. I usually just play board games or hang out with students during this event and their antics always amuse me. I got this thing called a "Vortex" which is a mini football with a foam tail attached. It also has these plastic pieces on the side that make it scream when you throw it. The students started by using this Vortex to play three flies up. As the night progressed and got darker this ball got harder and harder to see, but you could still hear the thing whistling through the air. At some point the ball itself became nigh on invisible and all that could be told of its impending approach was the sound. A new game formed where the students would form a tight group and one or two other students and one youth pastor, would huck this ball into the mass of students. Everyone would link arms and laugh and yell and flinch as the screaming sound was abruptly cut off when the ball would slam into the ground, the wall, or sometimes a body. It's made of foam so it wasn't painful as I can personally attest, but there was something amusing about everyone bracing for an impact that may or may not come. This went on for well over an hour. Maybe that's what ministry it sometimes. It's not success or failures, meetings or e-mails. Sometimes it's just joining arms with someone and laughing while an unknown force comes screaming into your midst. I think that's sometimes what its like to be a kid. To band together and prepare for an unknown fate streaking towards you while hoping when it hits, it doesn't hurt too much.