Come together

Is it just me or do youth groups have their own little cliques going on? I know there are sometimes problems with cliques inside of youth group. Oh the new kids, the old kids, the kids who have been raised on the Bible, the kids who are freaks. Come on, admit it, there are problems within youth groups involving cliques. But what about the youth group as a whole?

From my experience, I have seen that youth groups as a whole can act like their own little clique. One of the biggest churches in my town is the First United Methodist church. There youth group is pretty big too and they all hang out together at school it seems. They're all best of friends. It almost comes off to me as negative towards everyone else though because they're so tight knit like that.

I will admit that this idea has been nagging at me for quite some time now. Probably because this idea of cliques of youth groups are seen all the time.

Remember my doubt it blog from April? I doubted that our old youth pastors would come back and chaperone as well as bring their youth group to participate in our 30 Hour Famine. Yeah, so it ended up that, that youth group couldn't make it because they had other things going on. Right.

I have to wonder if maybe they were a little afraid to come hang out with us. I've been in the same youth group for 9 years. I know these kids don't bite and we're not as scary as we may look especially with our very tall youth leader. So what are you afraid of? Get out of your comfort zone and come hang out.

So about my doubts, another doubt happened. And I don't know, maybe I should just stop doubting things. So today (as in Wednesday), we were supposed to go to Cedar Point. A bunch of youth groups from our district were going. When I first found out about the trip, I was a little annoyed thinking hey we should totally go a different day. Oh so youth group clique right there. But no, that's when all the other youth groups were going. Sure, we'd see the other youth groups. Yeah, but it's not like we were going to hang out with them or anything. They all had their own set agendas.

Of course, last night, I got the call that the trip was canceled. Why do I always get excited for things that somehow I know won't work out? I knew this wasn't going to work out from the very beginning basically. I'm such a doubter.

One of the teens who was going to go was sick and the weather wasn't looking terribly good. If it had only just been the weather, I'm sure we could have still gone. It was supposed to thunderstorm all day. Did it? No. It rained a little bit this morning, but the rest of the day was cloudy and cool.

I really don't like the idea of youth groups forming their own little cliques. We are all in this together aren't we? So what's the problem?

Is your group afraid to jump out of their comfort zone? Do we smell funny? Does your youth group just think they're too cool for everyone else?

I know a lot of youth groups in my town do the 30 Hour Famine. I'm wondering why not get together as a whole big group, raise a ton more money than all the youth pastors combined bet we'll raise, and then get to do a few silly things to our youth pastors who bet we wouldn't raise the money, and also have fun fasting at the same time.

I know there are pastors and youth pastors of churches that aren't afraid to get together to have lunch and talk. Why can't the teens be the same way?

Jump out of your comfort zone. I don't think we smell unless you like Ohio State or something (joking, joking). And let me tell you, just because you think you're cooler than everyone else, doesn't mean you really are. In Christ, we're the same. God has a plan for each and everyone of us. Don't think you're any more special than the next guy. As Christians, we're all in this together.

One final word, the few times that I was able to go visit a different youth group that was lead by a youth pastor I had once had, I had to get out of my comfort zone. The first time, I only went to Sunday school where I got asked if I was related to the youth pastor because I was joking around with the youth pastor. The second time, I went to a Valentine's Day party, where I got to meet a lot of kids. Normally in that kind of situation you would probably see me sitting with the youth pastors, but once again I surprised myself by jumping out of my comfort zone and hanging out with some girls in that youth group. I also played some games with some people. It was really fun and if I had just hung out with the youth pastors, I probably wouldn't have as good of memories of that youth group.

I realize I'm only one person jumping out of my comfort zone. I can't be the only one though. A group cannot be made of one person. Come on, jump out of your comfort zone and come together with other youth groups. We should unite as one big youth group.