Putting teaching practice into youth
I know its been a while since I’ve written about this. Its been a wild ride in having to organise this and that. I think by now I’ve got a bit of clarity which is good. But I should be doing this everytime we finish a YMN. So hopefully we can continue with this.
I won’t comment on the Youth Mass because I think I’ll start making comments again once I’ve started getting involved with the planning of the youth mass. We’ve had to reshuffle people around the place because we’ve had people drop out. I’ve taken more of the Youth Coordinator role now. Sending emails, check mins, holding meetings. On top of that, I’ve suggested to get more involved with Education and liturgy side of things. I decided to take this on because; one, the nature of my job and two, it would be good practice for my teaching career. So I hope to practice teaching skills while I organize youth nights and youth masses. There is a level of being able to keep leaders being involved so a side of management to.
OK so the youth night. The theme was community. A topic I hoped that we would cover having already been through “breaking the shackles” of our sins and “Social Justice September.” We followed the gather, proclaim, break and send structure. I good structure to keep our focus on. We gathered them in a circular formation and started off with a bit of refreshments. In the past we left the food till late. Because we aren’t able to prep the food in time, we still need to provide some form of refreshments. Youth tend to get restless if they have nothing in their stomachs. Red cordial was a good choice hehe. A friend of mine says:
Jesus never spoke to empty stomachs
I love that quote. How can we let Jesus speak if we can give them basic essentials. Moving on we had a bit of an introduction, music, games, testimony from the Volunteers and then the proclaim. The proclaim was getting people to come up with one word on what community meant, involved or an example of. When members would say a word, two other members would put that up on the computer which is projected on the screen for everyone to see using Word Art function in Microsoft Word. I found this really effective and engaging during the session. Everyone made a contribution, members supported each other in their responses giving ooohs and aahhs. A really good atmosphere. At the end of it we came up with a montage of what community is. This isn’t the image cause I forgot to save the file. But this is a little sample of what we did
We then broke off into 3 groups in which group had a focus on an aspect of community. There was “Supporting each other”, “Resolving and argument” and “Working together”. Each group needed to create a skit that related to each aspect of community and present it back to the group. One of the groups finished late in completing the task in time, so I had to quickly come up with game to fill in the time. Its important to have a few fill ins. The last thing you want is youth standing around doing nothing. Yuck! So When they came back we started the presentation. Afterward, we ended of with prayer, each member praying for one thing for the person to right and then had a impromptu presentation from some members.
Before youth night began, there was a plan for the night. By the end of it, we only completed 80% of it. There were 2 presentations that came up from no were which filled time. I think its a good idea to OVER prepare for meetings, and just let the night take care of itself. Preparation is the goal you have in mind, but also be open for a bit of input from the members. It’s their youth night just as much as yours. They want to present something, either allow them or assign it for next youth night. I’m happy with the planning process and our over preparing. Its better having nothing at all.
Other than that, its all good.
God bless
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