Youth, on Youth Group, Part III

What makes youth group special? We asked the ones who know
best: our youth!
Here is the third article in the series of 3:

EMPOWERMENT by Catherine

Our youth group, even though it’s as large as it is, has found that it can accomplish many things, run smoothly, have a great time, AND empower individuals – with two adult leaders (not advisors!) and without a steering committee, president, treasurer, and the likes.

A big part of what we all get from this group is the skills we need to be leaders, in our group, in our church, and in the world. Part of what our leaders – Jessica and Sean – do, is to give everyone the skills, support, and opportunities to be a leader, and anyone can be a leader in any activity where they’re comfortable. In WUSYG there are opportunities to lead meetings, worship, overnights, dinners, concerts, and basically anything we can think of, and if we don’t think of anything, our leaders encourage us to try our hand at leading something at one time or another, either individually, or in small groups. By having skilled leaders rather than youth or advisors running a lot of our meetings and activities throughout the year, we learn a lot just by watching them and participating in the things they plan. From that, we learn how to organize our own things with their support: we learn how to lead discussions, how to plan service trips, how to construct a worship service, and a bunch of other things that we just wouldn’t necessarily know how to do, or have the skills to do.

As part of our youth group we are given opportunities to achieve things we never would have thought we could. The largest example of this occurs on our Habitat trips. On these week-long trips, we are given the opportunity and skills to achieve something very tangible. Framing a wall for a house for the homeless family whose daughter is working beside you is amazing; for some of us, finally getting a nail in without bending it is the most empowering thing we’ve experienced in years!

There are a dozen more ways that the youth are empowered within and by our group and its activities, but it is important to mention that youth involvement in the church and congregation are also significant. Our congregation accepts us as part of the larger community; it is part of their commitment to our Youth Group. With this acceptance, the youth are given the opportunity to serve on committees and have a voice. We have youth on nearly every committee in our church; youth are teachers, and sextons, and a lot of other things as well. By allowing for this involvement, the church has given us opportunities to become active and accept more responsibilities, and we learn how to be responsible with our power, and how to work with others.

The kinds of things we’re empowered to do in our youth group and in our church is not something we get at school, or through sports teams, or really anywhere else in our lives. In our church we are given the chance to learn about people different from us, the chance to make a difference, the chance to learn about ourselves, to learn from others who are older and wiser or more experienced, the chance to use our power wisely, and the chance to become someone who will build off all these experiences we’re given, and use them not just in our youth group, but in our community and the larger world.