Categories: uncategorized
Date: 11 October 2004 11:13:01
Well, I THINK it was. I had my first experience with the youth group since they broke our (glass) front door in an excess of enthusiasm last year, yesterday. And they were... extraordinarily kind, especially given that I am currently existing in a Day-nurse-induced haze and am finding it difficult to make myself heard.
My husband, who really is a youth leader, and I had chosen to do some stuff on John 8 - the bit about the woman who was taken in adultery and the Pharisees ask Jesus whether they can stone her. Jesus stoops down and writes in the dust - and then famously says "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". So we read them, that, and got them to talk a bit about the difference between knowing you are forgiven and really feeling that Jesus has blotted out your sins and you don't need to wallow in guilt about them any more. I did a "Book of Witnesses" style first-person account of what it might have been like for that woman, and then we got them (separately) to go up, write anything they still felt bad about in a tray of sand and then wipe them out. We used some random secular music, too. ( Norah Jones, Paul Simon, The Verve, Jeff Buckley)
Does that count as alternative worship? It was certainly alternative to the 40 minute talk on chapter 3 of the purpose-driven life that the "grown-ups" got (oh well, only another seven weeks of Rick Warren to go). Sometimes I'd rather be in the youth group - they have a much better time, and sometimes they get doughnuts. I've got my priorities straight as usual