Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

Here is a question a friend of mine would like some feedback on…

Would you have club at a fast food place?

• Would you have it there once?
• Would you have it there for an entire semester?
• What would be the pros/cons?
• If you’ve done it, any recommendations?
• Any funny stories?

Here is my experience… I’ve done club several times at Taco Bell, at a local kids pizza place (Peter Piper Pizza), and maybe somewhere else. I’ve found that these places are very open to having an event on a Monday night if it brings people in. I’ve also been very upfront with them about the songs, the talk, etc. Nothing has phased them. On the plus side I’ve seen people who are just eating there really interested in who we are. On the challenging side, I have at times been worried that a stranger or two was being a little too interested in some of the teenage girls. It is a hard place for proclamation, but I like the oddity of it… Something feels right to me to be at a public place in our community talking openly about Christ to our friends. I’ve never tried more than one meeting a semester doing this.

I’m very eager to hear your input, and I know some of my friends are too… Can you help us by proving some comments?

One of the best ways to learn the lyrics to a song is to play it at an event at camp. You will inevitably have a young leader or student come up and say, “don’t you know what that song is about?!?!” On the other hand it is also helpful to actually know the words to the songs you sing along to in club. It is embarrassing when a leader has been singing “Brown High Girl” all these years only to find out that is not what the lyrics are. OK maybe it is not that bad.

I have found a great free program that is linked to my iTunes. It displays the lyrics for whatever song is playing automatically. You can even copy/paste them or whatever you want to do with them. It is a small program that simply does what is supposed to and little more. And again, did I tell you it is free? It is even open-source, for those of you who care.

Just as a reminder, if you are going to do a song in club, you need to have purchased a copy of the sheet music and have it with you.

As the semester draws to a close, we all get a well deserved break. But soon kids will start asking, “When is club?!”

One year I was on campus the first day of school in January after the break and a girl came up to me and said, “I have 8 new friends coming to club tonight! Isn’t that great!” In my mind I was thinking, “What are you talking about? Club doesn’t start for 3 more weeks! Us leaders need a break!” But instead I quickly said, “That is great, we are meeting at the food court at the mall.” And then I was able to get one more leader who helped me pull of an event for those kids and a bunch more.

I’ve done everything from waiting until February and just focusing on contact work until then, all the way to having club on the first day back.

I’m interested to know, when and why do you re-start club?

Also be sure to vote on the survey to the left of this post. It will be up until we have a new one.

One of our last clubs in the semester is our “best of” club. I look back at our songs, our mixers, our games, our skits and I put them on a poster. Then for a couple weeks I have kids vote on their favorite ones. Then I pick kids to run them. We also have a student share his or her story.

It really sets kids up for success because they have already seen how the mixer/game/skit works. Also it is a nice break for our leaders near the end of the semester. Though sometimes it is more work to help the students Also it adds buy-in because the kids are looking forward to seeing what they voted for. For the songs I played guitar and picked different kids to lead each song.

Here are our plans from a week ago… Enjoy!

My friend Brian sent me this great idea…

“At Club these past weeks, we have done a game called "What would you do for a buck?"  One kid is chosen by the crowd to do something crazy like drink a blended Happy Meal, and that kid invites all their friends to Club that night and encourages them to bring $1.  $30-$45 is the norm for one crazy stunt at our Club and the student is given the option to keep the cash or turn it in for camp.  If they use it for camp, we double it!

“A boy named Richard came this past week and gave us a $10 bill. We asked if he wanted change.  He confidently smiled and said, "No change.  Keep it all."  You see, Richard was the boy doing the crazy thing that night, and he really wanted to go to camp.  He took his last $10 and turned it in, knowing that money would be doubled for camp.  Richard doubled down.” 

So I posted the Turkey club a little late. Maybe this will be in time for your year end club plans.

The Christmas plan is very simple. But at least it is ready to go! Hope it helps!

Christmas Club

Christmas Songs Handout

So this might be a little late. Maybe you could pull it off this week or next? We had a gobbling good time at Turkey Club. I love Turkey Bowling. Adding finger holes in front of the kids added a nice, and gross, touch to it all.

FYI… I have an exciting idea I’m working on for club and campaigners in the Spring that we can all share. I’m really interested in what your biggest needs are. Let me know if you can.

Here is a fun club that we did using pretty much only clothespins (which you can find cheap at most stores). When I’ve done this with WL be careful because some kids don’t have a high pain tolerance. Let the kids decide if they want to do it (don’t force anyone).

Here is a simple club we did the week before weekend camp….

Camp Club

Very random, but here is our tic tac toe club! One the mixer we had kids hold up their hands over their heads in an "X" or an "O" to keep it a little more organized and obvious.