Two weeks before Labor Day weekend, I called the mother of one of our incoming freshman about a “problem” I was having. I told her my “problem” was that I had never been a teenage girl (I paused for laughter, but didn’t get any until she realized I was trying to tell a joke). Since I had never been a teenage girl, I was having a hard time planning socials that teenage girls enjoyed. (At the time, I had one of the rare youth ministries in the world where the guys outnumber the girls. . .by about 10 to 1.)
After chatting for a while she ended up inviting our entire youth group over to her house on Labor Day for pizza, basketball, board games . . . or whatever the teens wanted to do. We didn’t plan anything, and it was great. We now have more freshman coming to our weekly youth group meeting than we’ve ever had.
One special note: Meeting new freshman is always awkward. Even after years of youth ministry I still struggle with meeting teens for the first time. I’m not sure if they are testing me or what, but I try not to worry about it too much, and I try not to hang out too much with the teens I already know. It just takes time . . . last weekend one of the teens hijacked my computer and tried to change my desktop wall paper so that it would read “Doug is awesome.” I almost cried, and then I threw them out of my office.
