One of my best friends and former roommates is the pastor of student ministries at a local church. This basically means he is in charge of running the junior and senior high youth groups for the church. He is rather good at his job and while under his watch, the junior high youth group has exploded in size and as a result he has recruited several people including myself to help out as volunteer youth sponsors. Basically our roles are to lead small groups and just have fun with the kids during the game time. Now the game time is where it's at. Junior high kids generally are not overly tuned in during the small group time, not that they're bad kids or anything, they just have the attention span of a goldfish with ADHD. Needless to say it can get a little frustrating trying to get through to a junior higher on a deep level. So game time is where the frustrations can be released a little bit, namely in the form of dodge ball.
Now we play a lot of different kinds of games but about 94% of them are some variation of dodge ball. This is probably because if we weren't allowed to throw things at the children after they completely ignore the profound theological knowledge we attempt to lay down, none of the sponsors would ever come back. I don't want you to get the wrong idea, the kids are in no danger. We use those foam nerf and gator balls that are basically made up of the same thing as those swimming noodles which are designed so it is physically impossible to hurt someone with them. And while we occasionally play sponsors versus students games, the sponsors are usually distributed evenly between the teams. Still there is something therapeutic about blindsiding a 7th grader who somehow couldn't manage to stay quiet during a 30 second prayer.
There is however one major problem with game time. Junior high kids are bigger cheaters than Major League Baseball players. Now obviously none of our students are shooting up roids to get an edge (although we do have a giant 8th grader who I suspect of recreational HGH use) however they will blatantly disregard just about any rule intended to govern a game. In general, to actually get one of the kids to sit down during a dodge ball game, you have to hit them with a ball at least four times and directly call them out before they will even consider the fact that they are no longer part of the game. Sometimes video replay and 11 witnesses are also required.
It used to boggle my mind how anyone could cheat with such a disregard for anything that resembled integrity. Now it is possible that its because they completely disregarded any lessons we have had on integrity. Honestly I don't know what it is. What I realize now though is that its not just junior high kids, because there was a split second in our dodge ball game on Wednesday night where a ball hit my shoe and for just a moment I thought to myself, "Maybe no one saw that . . . "
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3 comments:
2 words...cheat back. They will never know. Any if they accuse you, just let them know that you are in charge and can do what you want. Im looking forward to helping with that youth group once again.
I see this all the time at school too. I think it's because kids feel so pressured to achieve (get "A"s, go to college, get more "A"s, get a good job, etc.) that they begin to believe results are all that matters, not how you got them.
Perhaps this is the product of an internet generation. From the seemingly innocuous: it doesn't matter if you know the answer if Google is nearby, to the more disturbing: it doesn't matter if pornography objectifies women as long as you get your jollies.
This clearly extends to the classroom. Answers are answers and "A"s are "A"s. I doesn't matter if it was text messaged to you by a friend or plagiarized from the internet. My guess is that it goes much farther too.
This is genius. And 100% true. I love youth group.
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