A scenario that might paint a little better picture about what I do...

[Ben E Lou]

I just got an IM that I responded to, and I've read little comments here and there that would indicate that most people on here have, I suspect, an incorrect impression of exactly what I do, and specifically with the kinds of kids I hang out with. The group I lead is not your typical "youth group." We're an outreach organization. We build relationships with kids who have little/no church background or who are just pew-warmers (i.e. mom and/or dad make 'em go, but they have no real interest in faith for themselves). The huge majority of the kids that are involved in my ministry are pretty wild partiers. Most of them are getting drunk every weekend, smoking pot (and sometimes doing harder drugs) regularly, having sex--sometimes unprotected; they're drinking and driving, the whole nine yards. What a lot of people don't realize is that many (maybe even MOST) kids living like that really do have an interest in spiritual matters, God, Christ, etc., but they'd be completely unaccepted by most church youth group kids--and even by many church youth pastors, sadly.

Point being, Bill Venable, for example, was a *VERY* rare kid involved in my organization--a kid who really was serious about his faith and trying to live it out. If you recall the other two deaths of kids I've known in the last couple of years, Hannah (the girl killed in a motorcycle wreck after her boyfriend and several others were down in an industrial park racing...) and Matt (the kid who committed suicide last spring and who had serious drug/alcohol issues before that), they're stories are, quite frankly, much more typical of the kids I know best and who are involved in the ministry that I lead.

I'll give you a scenario that I was dealing with just yesterday to better explain the kinds of kids I spend most of my time with. I spent 2-3 hours yesterday afternoon with a guy who just finished his Junior year, who we'll call "Greg." I know Greg very well, well enough to be proactive with him when I hear of big stuff going down with him, so when I heard rumors here and there of a situation that occurred weekend, I called him up and said, "let's get together." When I finally got him to give me what I think is the whole story, I ended up having to explain to Greg why it really was a bad idea for him to help some of his friends--who are sophomore 15 and 16-year-old girls--get away with lying to their parents and going off with some of the seediest college-aged guys I know (one of the two ringleaders of this group of guys, "Darren" has done a good bit of slingin in the past, and probably still is, and the other, "Kevin" is just your basic all-around scumbag). It turns out that on many evenings, Greg and some of his buddies would go pick up these girls at one of their houses, pretending like they were all going to the movies together. (Greg and his buddies are considered to be some of the more-respectable guys within this particular group of kids.) Greg would then meet up with Darren, Kevin, and company. The girls would then go out to college parties with the older guys and their friends (yeah, lovely), while Greg and his buddies would go off to the movies, or go smoke the free/cheap pot they were in all likelihood getting from Darren in return for getting the chicks to them. (That's an assumption I'm making about where Greg gets his weed. Greg has told me that he smokes weed a good bit, and I know that he doesn't have a job. I've heard rumors here and there that some of the middle schoolers I know have gotten weed from Greg, but I can't see him making THAT much of a profit off of them to support as much as he's told me he smokes. Greg probably doesn't know that I know about Darren's source of alternate income, and would never want to be the one that told me about it.) At any rate, at the end of the night, Greg and his buddies would meet up with the girls, who'd been dropped off by Darren, Kevin and company behind an elementary school near their house, then take the girls home.

Well, last weekend, it seems that one of the girls, "Anita," got particularly wasted while hanging out with the college guys--so wasted that when she walked into her house, she couldn't hide it from her mom. Her mom asked where she'd been that night. Anita had enough of her faculties to realize that saying "with 'Darren' and 'Kevin'" would have been a *REALLY* bad idea, so she said, "with 'Greg' and them." So now, being older and supposedly more mature, Greg has got himself in just as much of a pickle as Anita, even though he happened to remain cold sober that night. (Greg is one of few of the kids I know well that I'm convinced rarely/never drives while under the influence.) Greg was trying to say, "How can I get the trust back of everybody's parents?" HA!!! It took me at least a half an hour to convince him that he was NOT being a "good friend to them" by helping them hook up with Darren and Kevin's crowd. Once I got him there, he finally came to the conclusion that he was culpable in all of this mess, too.

Oh, and by the way, this is the third time that Greg has gotten in residual trouble because of this particular group of girls. He's really much more straight-laced than they are.

Oh yes, and how did Anita and her friends get hooked up with these college-aged guys and their buddies to begin with??? You guessed it, boys and girls, both Anita and Darren were on the Colorado trip last summer; Anita had just finished her freshman year in HS, and Darren had just graduated. Darren apparently successfully put the moves on her at some point during the course of the week out there. Ugh.

[Ben E Lou]

Pre-emptive comments:

1. No. None of them brought sleeping bags on the Colorado trip, to the elementary school parking lot, or to the movies or college parties.
2. No. None of them is the daughter of our old friend Obtuse Mother.

[flere-imsaho]

Interesting. You're doing good work, and we could certainly use more people like you. Thanks for taking the time to explain it all.

Oh, and good luck.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Interesting. You're doing good work, and we could certainly use more people like you. Thanks for taking the time to explain it all.

Oh, and good luck.

When I saw your name as the last post in this thread, I was half-expecting a diagram to explain the connections between the people.

[spleen1015]

I respect you for the work you do, SD.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

I respect you for the work you do, SD.

I appreciate that, but it isn't really why I posted this at all. Several times in the past I've heard references to my "youth group kids" or whatever. I've posted a few small comments here and there to try to explain what I really do, but I figured yesterday's scenario would give a broader picture. I didn't like y'all thinking that I do a type of work that I really don't do.

[WSUCougar]

...and if you're not respected by a spleen, what's left in life?

[Franklinnoble]

Now I can see why you and SWMBO haven't had kids.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Franklinnoble

Now I can see why you and SWMBO haven't had kids.

We often ask each other the question, "Uh, who would we let them DATE???"

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Pre-emptive comments:

1. No. None of them brought sleeping bags on the Colorado trip, to the elementary school parking lot, or to the movies or college parties.
2. No. None of them is the daughter of our old friend Obtuse Mother.

You forgot:

3. No, I won't provide any pictures.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

1. No. None of them brought sleeping bags on the Colorado trip, to the elementary school parking lot, or to the movies or college parties.

Curse you for stealing away the obvious retort!

SI

[Buccaneer]

4. Yes, I blame Colorado's high altitude.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

4. Yes, I blame Colorado's high altitude.

Did I mention that we had a kid dang near die last year from high altitude pulmonary edema? We had to rush him down to Denver, then fly him home. He was coughing up blood at camp, but was 100% within two hours of landing in Atlanta. Pretty wild. The camp we attend in Colorado is at nearly 9,000 feet (very near Winter Park).

[DeToxRox]

SD is the guy (albeit black) from that episode of Boy Meets World with "The Centre"

WE WANT SHAWN HUNTER BACK, DAMN YOU!!!!!

But in all seriousness,

sounds like you're doing a great job and service for Tucker and for sure keep it up.

[LoneStarGirl]

Hey Skydog, so is this kind of like Younglife, or FCA? I participated in both throughout high school, and was going to go on the Younglife annual trip to Colorado but I had a softball tournament instead. When you said the trip to Colorado it got me thinking that maybe what you were doing could be compared to what we call Younglife down home.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by LoneStarGirl

Hey Skydog, so is this kind of like Younglife, or FCA? I participated in both throughout high school, and was going to go on the Younglife annual trip to Colorado but I had a softball tournament instead. When you said the trip to Colorado it got me thinking that maybe what you were doing could be compared to what we call Younglife down home.

It isn't kind of like YoungLife. It IS YoungLife. I first walked on a high school campus as a YoungLife leader back in 1988, and have been doing it since then. I went on full-time staff in '91.

[HomerJSimpson]

What is sad is, Skydog deals with more immature people on this job than his real job.

[RendeR]

I give you props SD, it takes a lot of patience and a lot of heart to make the effort with today's youth that you are doing. Keep up the good works. I am, for my own very personal reasons, a very anti-religion person, but I would like at some point to find a way to work with kids and help them as well. Perhaps once we're settled in Buffalo I can find some places to volunteer.

You make a good role model!

[Flasch186]

i respect your work BUT


Arent you a bit frustrated, and at wits end. I simply would not handle the "poor" decision making well. I would boot a bunch, tough love them probably, but all in all...I would simply have a hard time dealing with the hypocrisy of saying "christ" on the one hand and then conciously doing exactly the opposite in the other. I dunno...I just wonder if there isn't a better way to get through.

[LoneStarGirl]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

It isn't kind of like YoungLife. It IS YoungLife. I first walked on a high school campus as a YoungLife leader back in 1988, and have been doing it since then. I went on full-time staff in '91.

The reason I couldn't tell if you were talking about Younglife is because you kept talking about hoodlums and drugs and whatnot. In my Younglife we had softball and flag football tournaments, we met every Monday and Thursday and sang different songs and played games. But the majority of the people in my Younglife went to church every Sunday and never touched a drug in their life. It just seems like what you are talking about with your group never came up in my group.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by LoneStarGirl

The reason I couldn't tell if you were talking about Younglife is because you kept talking about hoodlums and drugs and whatnot. In my Younglife we had softball and flag football tournaments, we met every Monday and Thursday and sang different songs and played games. But the majority of the people in my Younglife went to church every Sunday and never touched a drug in their life. It just seems like what you are talking about with your group never came up in my group.

Well, our *target* kids are the unchurched. However, particulary in heavily "churched" communities, it can sometimes be difficult to keep the group from becoming overrun with church kids, because we do fun stuff, and far too often their church youth groups aren't very attractive to them. Unfortunately, when the group takes on that kind of flavor, the really wild kids don't want any part of it. When I took over YL in this community 9 years ago, the YL clubs at both high schools had were way too heavily tiltled toward church kids. With strategic planning, focused energy, a lot of prayer, and some great volunteers over the years, we were able to attract the wilder kids in our community. Nowadays, quite frankly, we're much more in line with the ministry of Jesus--the religious (and I do NOT use that word in any way complimentary) kids and adults in our community criticize us for hanging out with "sinners," and the sinners are flocking to our doors.

I'd rather see one lost sheep get found than see 99 fat sheep get fatter.

Flasch: Most of the kids I'm dealing with make no bones about the fact that they do *not* have a relationship in Christ. They're INTERESTED in finding out more, and a little fascinated by these peculiar leaders who seem to live so differently from them and their parents, but most would say either, "Well, uh, I guess I'm a Christian, because I'm not an atheist or Jewish or Muslim or anything, but it doesn't affect my life or anything." or "No, I'm definitely not a Christian. I believe that there was a Jesus and he was an amazing teacher and maybe even God on earth, but I'm not interested in giving up control of my life to him." Kids in both of the groups above would add, though, something like: "But I enjoy YL because it is fun, upbeat, the leaders really care about us, and we get to learn more about God and Jesus in a way that we can relate to."

Studies show that something like 90-95% of American teenagers say they believe that God exists, but that less than 20% of them say that their belief in God has a significant impact on the way they live their lives.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Flasch: Most of the kids I'm dealing with make no bones about the fact that they do *not* have a relationship in Christ. They're INTERESTED in finding out more, and a little fascinated by these peculiar leaders who seem to live so differently from them and their parents, but most would say either, "Well, uh, I guess I'm a Christian, because I'm not an atheist or Jewish or Muslim or anything, but it doesn't affect my life or anything." or "No, I'm definitely not a Christian. I believe that there was a Jesus and he was an amazing teacher and maybe even God on earth, but I'm not interested in giving up control of my life to him." Kids in both of the groups above would add, though, something like: "But I enjoy YL because it is fun, upbeat, the leaders really care about us, and we get to learn more about God and Jesus in a way that we can relate to."

Studies show that something like 90-95% of American teenagers say they believe that God exists, but that less than 20% of them say that their belief in God has a significant impact on the way they live their lives.

Okay, but what can you do about getting them to actually embrace their faith. And don't get me wrong Im not trying to minimize what you do by any means, but I think you know how my brain works and my brain just cant grasp this int hem, for some reason. If they go to the church atmosphere and enjoy the "safety" in it, then why can't they grasp more? Why can't they stay clean? If they went to some earth shattering things would it work...like the morgue? prison? etc. I don't know but with my brain and the way it works I'd just like to see some of these kids live it too.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

Okay, but what can you do about getting them to actually embrace their faith. And don't get me wrong Im not trying to minimize what you do by any means, but I think you know how my brain works and my brain just cant grasp this int hem, for some reason. If they go to the church atmosphere and enjoy the "safety" in it, then why can't they grasp more? Why can't they stay clean? If they went to some earth shattering things would it work...like the morgue? prison? etc. I don't know but with my brain and the way it works I'd just like to see some of these kids live it too.

Don't get me wrong. Some do live it. We've seen some remarkably changed lives. (Check out the song "More Than A Dream" in the FOFC Musician MP3 thread for one of their stories told in music.) Those are the ones that have kept me going. Others have called, written or e-mailed years later to let either me or another one of our leaders know that something we said or did 5 years ago came back to them then they were facing this or that difficulty. Howver, the bottom line for me is this: as best as I can understand the message of Christ, He called His followers to love people unconditionally and continually, regardless of how or whether or not they respond to the message.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Don't get me wrong. Some do live it. We've seen some remarkably changed lives. (Check out the song "More Than A Dream" in the FOFC Musician MP3 thread for one of their stories told in music.) Those are the ones that have kept me going. Others have called, written or e-mailed years later to let either me or another one of our leaders know that something we said or did 5 years ago came back to them then they were facing this or that difficulty. Howver, the bottom line for me is this: as best as I can understand the message of Christ, He called His followers to love people unconditionally and continually, regardless of how or whether or not they respond to the message.

Couldnt agree more with the tolerance....perhaps you could talk to BUbba Anyways, keep up the good work. Not only is your youth group a positive thing, so is this board. You do good works SD...keep your chin up.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Howver, the bottom line for me is this: as best as I can understand the message of Christ, He called His followers to love people unconditionally and continually, regardless of how or whether or not they respond to the message.

That is pretty much my understanding of Christianity as well.

[Ben E Lou]

Video Explanation

[Buccaneer]

I watched that with added interest to see if I knew any of the leaders (Dennis I've heard about but never met him).

May God continue to pour forth His blessings and strength to love.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

You forgot:

3. No, I won't provide any pictures.

He did that once before, remember?