Struggles During the Teenage Years

There is much brokenness in every youth group that you step into. Not only do students see drugs, alcohol, violence and even death in school; some students within a youth group struggle and deal with some of these problems themselves. In my youth group practicum we are going over the fact that most people are iceburgs, you only see the surface until you deeply connect with someone. We are trying to get students to reach out to the peers that they have around them, whom they usually wouldnt even give a second of their time. Jesus did the same, he met with the outcasts. Suicide is one of the leading causes of teen death; those who are prone to suicidal thoughts feel lonely. They feel as if noone would care if they were alive. We can prevent this from happening. We can invest ourselves into someone, so that they may feel the love that Jesus gives us everyday. While it is difficult to get the kids to do the simple tasks, we know that it is very beneficial to both them and the ones who they are reaching out to.We are asking that students try a little harder and try to get below the waterline.

The Size of a Youth Group

I chose my practicum church primarily based on its size. I grew up in a youth group that was relatively small. Throughout my time there we ranged from 5-50 students. I always wanted to challenge our youth group and have more programs that would bring in more of our community. So i decided that being at a church with 100+ students would be different for me. Since i haven't been a part of a youth group like this, i wanted to find out what it takes to run such a large youth group. From the beginning i observed that many of the students did not actually know each other. This was strange to me because my youth group was so tight knit and more of a family. I saw that when they would split up into small groups, students would usually stick with the same friends, and not really accept those from the outside. i have talked about these things with the youth pastor and he said that it is a cancer inside of the group. With there being so many high schools in the group if you are not from the one high school then you are looked down upon. In last weeks small group session it was set up that small groups would be pretty random. So in my group it suprised me when all but one of the students were from the majority high school. So i talked to them about that problem during our session. I asked them if they realized what was going on and they did. But they wanted to do something about it. They want to knock down the barriers and be more of a family. But, with such a large group it will take much commitment. For now i can just try to include the "outsiders" as much as possible. My goal is for the others to follow.