So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
-2 Corinthians 5:17
On October 6, our Youth spent a night together in fellowship, but underneath the frivolity, there was a spiritual goal. After dinner, the students were divided into groups of five. Immediately upon hearing they were going to be divided up, cohorts of classmates and friends began devising how they could all end up on the same “team.” Luckily, the wise Robbie Whitehead was prepared for such tribal instincts. Lining up the students by grade, she divided them into teams so that middle and high schoolers, boys and girls, would be growing in their relationships and working as a team.
Each team received a list of 30 scavenger hunt items to try and locate around the Raleigh Court Neighborhood. Some items were tangible- a green straw, a black dog, a leaf larger than your head, a member or staff member of RCPC not at youth group that night. Others, however, were more imaginative- something out of place or unexpected beauty. With each item the students took a selfie to prove they had located it. This tested their knowledge of their neighborhood and also taught them to see things they might otherwise miss or ignore.
My favorite moment came when two different packs of teens stormed into the home of Josh and Lisa Goad who were hosting a dinner for six new members to our congregation. What a better way to display the kind of church we are than to be taking selfies with our youth in the middle of the dessert course!
At the end of the scavenger hunt, the students reflected on their time together. They noted what they learned about each other. They shared which items were easier or harder to find. They teased out what in them made them so competitive to complete the challenge first.
Finally, they were encouraged to take this exercise into their daily lives. Signs of God’s grace are around us every day. We must practice an awareness, though, to see with the eyes of faith that everything has become new!” It is my hope that our scavenger hunt adventure helped to build new bonds between our students and that they carried this new “vision” into their classrooms on Monday and beyond.
Gratefully,
Andrew
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