I was a Young Life leader when I was a student at Hope College! Anddd two of the best summers of my life were those after my sophomore and junior years, which I spent interning at a Young Life camp in MN. Holla! For those who are not familiar with Young Life, it's an international para-church organization engaging mainly college-age peeps and other awesome adults in relational ministry to high school and jr. high students: kind of like youth group, but way louder and crazier, and full of gross games, stupid skits, and singing lots of Taylor Swift songs.
Once, I ate a worm at club. We leaders made this brilliant deal with our kids, where if they got like 50 new students to come all on one night, we'd get up there and swallow worms...
I'm a vegetarian(-ish), and basically the pickiest eater in the world. So, the fact that I ate a worm for my Young Life kids shows you how much I love them! Leading Young Life is one of the things I've missed most since graduating college. While high school students can often be self-absorbed, angsty, little punks, I love all of the potential, insightfulness, and heck - even (...especially?) the angst - that kids are full of at that age.
At the coffee shop, I work with a lot of high school-age (or thereabouts) students. They're often little punks, but it didn't take me long before they started reminding me of my awesome Young Life kids from back in MI, and for me to start treating them as such.
We talk about all kinds of things in between making beverages: friends, relationships, under-age beer pong tournaments (which I don't condone), school, and even faith. There are a lot of stupid little Young Life leader-insider phrases that we in the 'biz' throw around (often with an ironic tinge) when referring to hanging out with our Young Life kids: 'doin life together,' 'stayin relevant,' 'gettin excited about what they're gettin excited about' (totes my excuse for loving the Twilight Saga), etc. Even though the coffee shop is our job, I think it's really cool that we don't let this opportunity for (pardon the expression) 'doin life together' to be wasted!
Disclaimer: anyone with a Young Life background must love icebreaker-type games. It's kind of a prerequisite. As are guitar-playing-skills (still workin on that one). So, sometimes (all the time) I make us play games while we work. Some of my favs are:
- Two truths and a lie - you think of two random facts about yourself that are true, as well as one that's a lie, and everyone has to guess which isn't true (e.g., I was on Bozo Buckets as a child, I once swallowed a gold fish, and I had a pet duck - #2 is false... it was a worm!!!)
- Horse, Muffin, Bird - Looking only at a person's face, describe him/her using any combination of three of the following: horse, muffin, bird (e.g., there's a double-horse-bird, she's a triple muffin, or that guy's a double-bird-horse). Sounds means...but all in good fun!
- Guess the bevvy (pretty self-intuitive: soccer mom's gonna get a skinny vanilla latte)
- Your Team - If you see someone wearing something particularly horrible and 80's-ish; or, perhaps, some dude accessorizing with superfluous amounts of spikey chains; someone dressed really tool-y in all sear-sucker plus a straw fedora, maybe? Then ya put 'em on the other person's 'team'! If you're not careful, by the end of the night you could have a team full of real fashion-forward winners! (Also sounds kinda mean-spirited, but once again - all in good fun).
So much fun & games and doin' that good ol' life together at the coffee shop!
Once, I ate a worm at club. We leaders made this brilliant deal with our kids, where if they got like 50 new students to come all on one night, we'd get up there and swallow worms...
I'm a vegetarian(-ish), and basically the pickiest eater in the world. So, the fact that I ate a worm for my Young Life kids shows you how much I love them! Leading Young Life is one of the things I've missed most since graduating college. While high school students can often be self-absorbed, angsty, little punks, I love all of the potential, insightfulness, and heck - even (...especially?) the angst - that kids are full of at that age.
At the coffee shop, I work with a lot of high school-age (or thereabouts) students. They're often little punks, but it didn't take me long before they started reminding me of my awesome Young Life kids from back in MI, and for me to start treating them as such.
We talk about all kinds of things in between making beverages: friends, relationships, under-age beer pong tournaments (which I don't condone), school, and even faith. There are a lot of stupid little Young Life leader-insider phrases that we in the 'biz' throw around (often with an ironic tinge) when referring to hanging out with our Young Life kids: 'doin life together,' 'stayin relevant,' 'gettin excited about what they're gettin excited about' (totes my excuse for loving the Twilight Saga), etc. Even though the coffee shop is our job, I think it's really cool that we don't let this opportunity for (pardon the expression) 'doin life together' to be wasted!
Disclaimer: anyone with a Young Life background must love icebreaker-type games. It's kind of a prerequisite. As are guitar-playing-skills (still workin on that one). So, sometimes (all the time) I make us play games while we work. Some of my favs are:
- Two truths and a lie - you think of two random facts about yourself that are true, as well as one that's a lie, and everyone has to guess which isn't true (e.g., I was on Bozo Buckets as a child, I once swallowed a gold fish, and I had a pet duck - #2 is false... it was a worm!!!)
- Horse, Muffin, Bird - Looking only at a person's face, describe him/her using any combination of three of the following: horse, muffin, bird (e.g., there's a double-horse-bird, she's a triple muffin, or that guy's a double-bird-horse). Sounds means...but all in good fun!
- Guess the bevvy (pretty self-intuitive: soccer mom's gonna get a skinny vanilla latte)
- Your Team - If you see someone wearing something particularly horrible and 80's-ish; or, perhaps, some dude accessorizing with superfluous amounts of spikey chains; someone dressed really tool-y in all sear-sucker plus a straw fedora, maybe? Then ya put 'em on the other person's 'team'! If you're not careful, by the end of the night you could have a team full of real fashion-forward winners! (Also sounds kinda mean-spirited, but once again - all in good fun).
So much fun & games and doin' that good ol' life together at the coffee shop!
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