#519. Wearing matching t-shirts at the beach.
Apr 10th by Jon(Writing guest posts isn’t a competition but please know that if it was, Curtis would be melting his gold medal into a Promise Grill so fast your head would spin like a pair of rims. Whoa, double rap reference in one sentence. Pull it back Jon, pull it back. What can I say, Curtis has written a ton of guest posts and to tell you the truth, I hope he never stops because he is funny. And I’m a big fan of that.)
Wearing matching t-shirts at the beach.
It’s spring break season! That means nothing for me anymore, but it used to. We all have that friend, though, who’s still doing the spring break thing, bless his heart. No one has the guts to tell him he’s not 21 anymore.
That friend will probably be tagging along as a sponsor on your youth group’s Beach Outreach (or B.O.) spring break mission trip. “B.O.” is at least the theme of the middle schooler section of the bus.
My youth group went to Chicago one spring break for a mission trip. It snowed. Don’t do that. Hit up South Beach for the Lord…party in the city where the heat is on!
If you happen to be hanging ten on the beach sometime in April, here’s how to tell the church youth group from everyone else: matching t-shirts. Whether they do it for the sake of modesty, group unity, or both, you can bet your tankini that it’s a church youth group.
The t-shirt says something (probably in Español, por favor) like “No mas cerveza…Jesús apagará su sed”, which, in English, means “No more beer…Jesus will quench your thirst.” Sure they’re ready to talk to you about Jesus, but will they pee on your leg if a jellyfish stings you? That’s the sign of a real friend.
It’s a good thing those shirts are on, because the collective pastiness of this group could fill a glue factory, causing more than a few people to stumble (due to the blinding glare off of their epidermises…epedermii? epedermeese?). I’m not poking fun, I’m speaking from personal experience…I wear a t-shirt at the beach because otherwise it’s like staring directly at the sun through a telescope.
Let’s just say that if you see more than one set of footprints in the sand this spring break, those flip-flopped footprints are probably accompanied by youths wearing matching t-shirts. Before you curse them and call out some bears to maul them, think about their youth minister and all that paperwork he’d have to fill out at the hospital. The sad thing is, this trip counts as “vacation” for him.
(For more from Curtis, check out his blog justwallpaper.wordpress.com)
Comments
Matching shirts. Nice. This is why I have resisted printing shirts for our camps and retreats. A little intimidating to see 35 lime green shirts coming at you.
lolo. as a former youth pastor i feel your pain…not a fan of the cheesy attempts at cultural relevance on the front of them though. felt your pain on the vaca…
Vacation? Heck, it ought to earn him at least one EXTRA week of vacation. And the senior pastor should have to go to his house and scrub his toilets while he’s gone. A video of which should be shown in church the following week (”What I Did While the Youth Group Was at the Beach”).
…or maybe the Youth Pastor could get a couple of free sins…
That’s priceless. It sounds like something my youth group would have done if we weren’t located so far north.
Very Funny. Working as the Youth Leader at a Chinese Alliance church, we sometimes refer to those pastie white beach people as “chalkcasians”.
Good job, I just want to say a couple of things. First my pastor is awesome and he totally understands that taking the Youth on a trip is far from vacation. Remember those “farfegnugen” commercials from the 90s? My Senior shirt was “farfromfreshmen” so for my next Youth trip I should get a leaders shirt that says “farfromvacation” The Youth wouldn’t get it but most of the leaders would laugh.
Anyways, my pastor and I went for a night like and I told him about our vacation. He told me that I could take a month if needed. I told him we already had out tickets and were taking 2 weeks but might need another week to recover.
Second I’m personally wrestling with getting matching shirts for our next trip, which is in May so I need to do something this week.
Jesus died for “My Space” in heaven!
Where I’m from, Brownsville, TX, you don’t even need matching T-shirts.
South Padre Island is about 20 minutes from Brownsville, so we go to the beach as often as we can.
You can spot a mission group easily without matching T-shirts. There are only two things that will bring a large group of mostly-white people to South Padre island: Spring Breakers and Youth Mission Groups to Mexico.
Brownsville, TX happens to be the southernmost border of the United States and Mexico. As a matter of fact, my home AND church are within 4 miles of the Mexican border.
As you can imagine, we’ve grown accustomed to Spring Breakers, Youth Mission Groups, and Winter Texans. (Winter Texans are a group of mostly-white people who “migrate” to South Texas to escape the winter season of their home state.
Ha ha!
My church frequently sends teams to go out on short-term missions. On the nights they are commissioned they frequently wear matching (& ugly) shirts. If I know any of the team members going, I inevitably think, "he usually looks ok, but tonight he looks like a dork".
I can appreciate being white. I have some funky tan lines right below my knees. If anyone looks at them too closely they temporarily go blind.
wv: sneban – a state of outward conformity, e.g. matching shirts.
I hope this doesn’t start an epidemic of packs of middle school boys going to the beach and peeing on peoples’ legs saying, “Sorry dude. I though you had been stung by a jellyfish and I wanted to be your friend.”
It’s always amused me that our college, along with the slough of spring break missions trips to places like Guatemala, Paraguay, and Honduras, has a missions trip to Daytona Beach, Florida. Yeah…
I wonder if they were to do a mission trip in their own hometown; witnessing, dramas and whatever else they do, if they’d be comfortable wearing all matching neon purple shirts?
Oh it’s definitely not only on the beach. It’s also at Disneyland, downtown, and every mission trip ever. One time we all wore matching red shirts to Mexico and looked like the Bloods. It was pretty sketch. But a lot of times, our designed shirts are pretty freaking sweet.
The “vacation” thing makes my head huurt.
If only it were not so….
Please God, smite the laity who speak thusly and strike upon them the affliction of youth sponsorship with responsibility. Amen
@ max02 -
Yes, but winter texans are uniformly identifiable by the bermuda shirts and knee high black socks combo and their women wear the “house-dress” which by definition is a garment meant for and never to leave the “house.”
WV: pepurrin – our youth group was pepurrin the beach with our “t-shirt gospel” evangelism efforts
Awesome reference to Will Smith’s “Miami.” I’m proud that you used it and that I got it.
I half expected a mention of those evangelism flip flops that have stuff like “Jesus” printed on the bottom of one and “loves you” on the other so that you leave a track of “Jesus loves you”s in the sand wherever you go. I saw them advertised in the back of, like, “Christianity Today” or something like that once.
Jeff at 1:36, here sits a winter Texan who has never had on a pair of Bermuda shorts. And I have a
wife who would rather die than to step outside the RV in a “housedress.”
Guess we’re not all created equal, eh?
*giggles* You know what’s even more sad? I am 21 and I’m here online during spring break
Jon and Curtis…
This was a hilarious post. I worked as a youth director for five years, and this definitely brought back memories. One in particular, but it was too long to put here so I posted it over at my blog. Check it out!
Thanks for the continued awesomeness guys, it is much appreciated.
The matching shirts almost invariably look hideous, rendering even your most attractive teens 50% nerdier by wearing them. As a (former) youth minister, this is a good thing.
There is nothing more awkward than random drunk frat guys trying to hit on your (admittedly beautiful) 17 year old out of the the passenger side window.
That. Was. Stinkin. Hilarious
I love the Will Smith reference too…witty and cool are you Curtis.
Ahh, the good old days of matching others! Not only Church groups do it. Families too. Mom once made all six of us still at home black & white striped shirts and butterscotch cullottes for us girls, the boys had the same color slacks. We went to an amusement park and were asked several times if we were a band!! my brother said yes, and we sang something ridiculous for them!
And please, no need to urinate on your jellyfish0 stung friends- meat tenderizer works great and is probably healthier
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