February 2 and 4

Since my supervisor had a board meeting to prepare for on Monday afternoon, I was left to tie up loose ends for our Wednesday night program and finish any work that I hadn't the week before. Since our program was cancelled the previous week, we were just going to do the activities and message that were going to be given that week.  One of my required texts for this internship is called "Communicating for a Change" by Andy Stanley and Lane Jones.  This book talks about how to give a sermon (message) in the most effective way possible.  With lack of other productive things to do, I dove into the book and almost finished it that day.  I learned a lot about how to structure my messages and how to pinpoint a certain idea that I want to get across to the audience.  Overall, Monday was a very enlightening day.  On Wednesday, my supervisor and I met to discuss the message series for the rest of the year (which lasts until May 27th).  The plan is as follows, "Lovebug" for the weeks of February 11, 18, and 25, "On Location" for the weeks of March 4, 11 and 18, "CSI Skull Hill" for the weeks of March 25, April 1 and 8 and "iPhoto" for the weeks of April 29, May 6 and 13.  "Lovebug" is a series based on "Love, Sex and Dating" for Middle Schoolers.  The messages are centered on the idea to "wait to date" until you are older and focus now on just being friends with the opposite sex.  I will be giving my first message ever on February 25, where I will be leading a group discussion on the differences on boys and girls (the ideas and questions are still in the process of being formed for my message).  "On Location" takes a single monument or place in the world and relates it to a Biblical principle, for example, the Leaning Tower of Piza could relate to having a strong foundation in Christ.  "CSI Skull Hill" will explore the many facts about Jesus' death on the cross, how it happened and what really occurred.  In the last series, "iPhoto" we will discuss important issue of self-image from a Biblical standpoint.  After this meeting, we had our weekly program, which went extremely well, and then we had our monthly leaders meeting. In this meeting, the most important issue to discuss was the size of the teams.  During the night, I had noticed that my team, along with one other, had extremely small numbers, maybe hitting 10 or 15 students tops.  The other two teams had huge numbers of students.  So I proposed to the leaders that we join a small team with a big team to then create two teams.  The leaders were excited about this idea and so we decided to put it into effect starting the following week.  

February 9 and 11 

I was quite busy this week at The Hub. My first task on Monday was to read through many applications for a missions trip to Zambia, Africa.  I had to read over the high schoolers' responses to questions such as, "what do you think you would contribute to the team if you were chosen?", and then rate their answers on a scale of 1-10.  After finishing these applications, I got to work on researching the message series that will take place throughout the rest of the semester.  The one topic I focused on was the "On Location" series, so I researched many of the World Wonders and creatively brainstormed how I could relate them to Biblical principles.  I found many ideas and then moved on to the message that I would be giving on the 25th of February.  I found a couple of websites from other Youth Programs on how they tackled the differences between boys and girls.  With a few examples in hand, I tried to formulate the basis for my discussion and how I would carry it out.  I decided that I wanted the girls and boys to be separated and then answer questions such as "what do you think are the five most important things to the opposite sex?" After answering three questions like this, they will be brought back together to exchange ideas.  This will hopefully be a fun and enlightening experience for the students.  Next, I was given the task to find a video to use for my supervisor's message.  He wanted me to find a video clip that would show the idea of waiting to date.  This task was much harder than it seemed, and in the end, we were fruitless and so had to scrap the idea of using a video clip. My supervisor and I also discussed how the teams would now be set up.  We would join the Red and Yellow team to make the Yellow Team and then the Blue and the Green team to make the Green Team. We would also be instituting a new "rewards system" for students who brought friends.  There would be some sort of points prize that would be given for each new student brought.  Then at the end of the month, whichever team had the most points would win a team pizza party.  My main goal for Wednesday was to prepare for the program for that night and to create the "Valentine's Day themed" crowdbreaker.  I finally decided to use a variation of Rock, Paper, Scissors, but instead calling it the "Kiss of Death" using Cupid, Lovebug and Kiss of Death.  After coming up with the rules for this, I ran to the store to find an appropriate Valentine's Day prize for the winner.  When I returned from the store, I got things ready for the evening, updating the leaders who run the crowdbreaker on what the rules for the game were and then joined the team meeting that occurs every week before the program starts.  We informed everyone of the new team formations that were going to occur.   Overall, the team change was a great idea and the entire evening ran very smoothly.