the Super Bowl and Other Things that Cause Stress

Last night was Live Out Loud Student Ministries fourth annual Super Bowl Party. Our youth, college students, Jimmy and me, and a few of our adult leaders all gathered at the Nelson's house to watch the big game or play cards or play wii or just have a good time. It is usually one of the most laid back events we have every year. We gather at the church and bus the kids to the house. The kids bring drinks and any special snacks. We provide the  Game, the Wii, and pizza. Simple enough.

On the outside this year seemed just that simple too. Behind the scenes things were quite a different story. Over the past year our group has been going through some difficult struggles and transitions. Attendance has been up and down and tensions have been high. So as we called Little Caesar's Pizza to order 12 larges we prayed that there would be enough people there to eat them. In fact, the stress was so bad that Jimmy couldn't get a good night's sleep the night before.

I tried to tell him that everything would be fine and that kids would show up. Hey! It's the Super Bowl. There's free pizza! And although we do a devotion instead of watching the half-time show, most teens feel this is a non-threatening environment where they are not going to get preached out. So they would come.

But the whole week leading up to the party, we got phone call after phone call after Facebook message after text message of students who weren't coming--even some of our dependable regulars! It was discouraging and added to the already mounting disappointment.

Finally Super Bowl Sunday gets here and the phone calls start again. Only this time they are students who haven't been in months who wanted to let us know they were coming. It was a total 180. In the end, we ate 10 out of 12 pizzas. We had so much fun routing for our teams. We had about 30 or so students and adults, but most importantly God provided! He blew our minds and made us feel foolish for stressing out in the first place instead of trusting that He would take care of it. Even if it was just a Super Bowl Party. There was no need to stress. God is in control and always has been.

"Look at the nations and watch--be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." Habakkuk 1:5

Planning Events They'll Love

This past weekend our youth group went on their Third Annual Mystery Trip. We had a blast! It constantly amazes me how much fun we have on an event that we weren’t even sure would work the first time we did it. The secret…get the students involved. I feel this is why we have so many successful events.

In the fall we have our Back to School Retreat. During this retreat we play games, have fun, do worship, fellowship, eat lots of junk food, and sit down and plan out the schedule for the entire school year. Yep! We do it all from August to May in one to two days. Then we crash the day after because our brains are so exhausted!
No matter what age, if you get your target audience involved in the planning then they will love it. I have found this to be true for two reasons:

#1 They know what to expect.
#2 It gives them a sense of ownership and pride in the events because they helped come up with them and they are more likely to invite their friends.

Take Mystery Trip for example…
After we all loaded up on junk food (Jimmy would say it is vital to creativity) we sat down as a group for a brainstorming session. We have one person who writes all of the ideas down on paper and only one rule—no idea is stupid or bad or out-of-bounds. So everyone started throwing out ideas and someone said a mystery trip. We wrote it down. Once we were finished brainstorming we all pulled out the calendars that we printed for them and flipped to the first month. Someone picks a number from 1 to whatever number of ideas we come up with (usually around 150). *FYI: We keep the brainstorming lists from year to year so if we are having trouble getting started or coming up with more ideas we can always draw upon events that we originally shelved for one reason or another.*

When they chose “a mystery trip” we talked about a few things…
What would this event be?
What would we do during this event?
Can we afford to do an event like this?
Would your friends come to an event like this?

Once all of these things are considered we decide whether or not the event makes the calendar cut. If it does then we decide where on the calendar to schedule it and an assistant event director (one of our student leaders) is assigned to help with the planning and organization of the event.

Kevin, one of our college students, has been the assistant director of Mystery Trip since it was born in 2008. Every year he helps Jimmy decide where we are going to go, what we are going to do, and he keeps it a secret from everyone else…it’s a mystery after all! Some events are so popular that they become a tradition and occur in the same month every year (such as Mystery Trip)! And that’s how you plan an event that you know they’ll love!

Share your ideas for events of all ages. What has worked for you? What didn’t work for you? Do you have ideas for how an event could be done better? Share them in the comments! Everyone is welcome to participate. No idea is a stupid idea!