21. Shared Experience, Defining Moments
We were on our way back from an awesome youth retreat in the fall. Unable to afford a bus for the trip we had 9 cars and vans caravan style coming back home, a 6 hour trip. A little more than 2 hours away from home the 7th car saw an emergency vehicle and slowed down. The 8th vehicle hit the car and the 9th hit the 8th. It was a youth pastor's nightmare. The highway was shut down, 3 cars were completely totalled. Ambulances, fire trucks, police. It was a scene, and I was in charge. By God's amazing grace no one was severely injured. Some amazing parents drove out to pick up students and take them home. Not one complaint came to my ears against me or my leaders who were driving. Many hours later than scheduled every student eventually made it home safely. It was traumatic, some people were struggling with everything that had happened so we had an impromptu get together the next night in the youth room. We just put the word out there that we'd be hanging out if anyone wanted to talk or whatever. Almost everyone showed up. We talked about it. Students gave testimonies of how God spoke to them through the event, how kids riding in those 3 cars felt God protect. I took pictures for insurance purposes, I didn't show them to the kids but when a couple leaders and I looked at the photos we were amazed that no one was injured or worse.
It was a defining moment. It was one of the best things that ever happened in my 6 years at that church. People forgot about who said what about who. They forgot about jr high and sr high. It was one family bonded by a shared experience. Months later I was talking with some leaders and we admitted that we could not have planned a better event and joked that if we knew it would be so good we would have had an accident years sooner (I hope no one takes offense, it's not really a "ha ha" joke).
That brings me to the point of my blog today. Every group NEEDS a shared experience to bond. I bonded with a group of students doing chinese fire drills on a frozen highway in the middle of the night on the way back from a ski trip. 8 years later we still laugh about it. I bonded amazingly with students on missions trips to our backyard and across the world. I bonded with leaders on a drive from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Austin, Texas. We need these moments in our ministry.
This became painfully apparent in my last position. We changed our program and took away our weekly fun youth event. I liked the format, mostly because I'm not a games guy, but about 6 months into the experiment I looked back and thought, there's not one moment in this past year that we can look back as a group and say, "Hey, remember when (that crazy thing) happened at that event!"
Sure, we had worship and Bible study together. We shared that as an experience, but there were no real "shared experiences" to speak of, no defining moments. We changed the format back and had a huge "Eggstravaganza". It was awesome. We hadn't laughed, played and had so much fun all year.
What are your defining moments as a group? What are your most treasured shared experiences? Do you take these into consideration when you are putting together your calendar?
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