Posts Tagged ‘teens’
Youth group rules.
Nov 5th by Jon- Tagged in:
- camp,
- retreats,
- teens,
- youth,
- youth group
“What am I supposed to do, swivel?”
An exasperated friend asked me that recently. He was telling me about a rule he had received as a Christian youth camp counselor. In the contract for the camp, he had been told, “You can only side hug the campers. No front hugs.”
And that’s an OK rule. That makes sense, I get that. It’s designed to protect both the campers and the counselors. But my friend had a problem. Occasionally a camper would break down in tears, say something like, “My uncle just died and it is killing me” and then throw their arms out for a front hug.
Which is when my friend proclaimed, “What am I supposed to do swivel? In that moment, as they lean in for a hug, should I just turn, lightning fast and offer them a side hug? ‘Go ahead, let it out fella, go ahead and cry on my hip.’”
The weird thing is my youth group basically had the opposite rule. At the end of each time we hung out, we couldn’t leave the room until we had all hugged the mandatory number of necks. The youth minister would say, “5 mandatory hugs tonight” and then the most awkward 7th grade hugs would commence. (They weren’t awkward for me, I was rocking MC Hammer type pants and a vanilla ice stripe in my eyebrow, my hugs were dope. Yo.)
But hearing his story about the forced side hug made me realize something: there are no internationally agreed upon rules for the governance of youth groups.
So today, I thought I would set out to right that wrong. To create a list of rules for all youth groups based on the ideas we’ve all discussed in the last 18 months. I give you …
The Stuff Christians Like Youth Group Rules …
Most Popular Posts: