Reflection Paper

This semester, I got to participate in a lot of things. One night I got to lead a game. It was great experience getting up in front of the kids, I felt like I could be myself. Another night Pastor Tony asked me to pray before he gave his message; this was a stretch for me because I get nervous when I have to talk in front of people. Occasionally after the message, Tony splits up the youth, by grade, into small groups. When this happens I go with the 10th graders and discuss with them the message and pray with them when it is all done.

Every week before youth, Tony has all the adult leaders meet and discuss the layout of the night. Tony has a little half sheet of paper with the outline of the night. I find this very helpful, because I always am wondering what is next. This is definitely something that I am going to hold on to and continue when I am a youth pastor.

Something that really stuck out to me in one of my meetings with Pastor Tony, is what he told me after I told talked to him about a boy in the youth group that I connected with. He told me that relationship and mentoring is what having youth group is all about. He said that when I get a job, and become a youth pastor, I am going to want to train my leaders and student leaders to be open to meet people and befriend them.

Ever since my mid-term evaluation meeting, I have made it a personal effort to learn the students’ names, and step out to meet them. By stepping out to meet them I am saying that I want to know them on a more personal level. I am better at larger group things rather than one-on-one conversations, and that is one area I struggle with, yet when you read through my blogs, you will see many instances where I have improved!

Over all this semester has been a great learning experience for me. I feel that I have accomplished my goal in becoming a friend to the students on a personal level. One thing that I wish I could have had a little more practice in is the area of preaching. There was a time when pastor Tony scheduled me to preach, but it never happened.

Week Ten

Youth Group 3 hours

Personal Reflection:
What a great night! I love being with the kids, it was good to see them again. It has been awhile since we had break. So tonight I got to talk to those two girls that I have been talking about. I got to know a lot about them, and I learned to just be quiet and let then talk. I ask how their Thanksgiving went and what they did. They said with a sigh “we just stayed home, we didn’t go anywhere.” So I tried to add some humor and asked if they cooked the turkey, and my humor was successful, they giggled a little.

After some small talk of finding out a little about their family life and that they do school independently on their own with no supervision. I ask about the message tonight and what they thought, or what did people talk about in their small group (Occasionally we break out into small groups, by grade, after the message to discuss). They didn’t really know what to say… so I briefed on what our small group discussed… I could go into it but I won’t, I just want to say that I have been working on being more personal with students, and tonight I feel that I accomplished something.

Personal Reflection:
You would think that this week I would be super stressed and not be happy because of all the work I have. But that is not how it is… I am happy and cheerful. I have tons of work still to do, specially the exegesis for Dave Smith. Even through all of the work I can still say praise God for the snow and everything. So that is that!!!