Final Reflection

YTH-220
Ryan Wilson
Final Reflection Paper

For my practicum I volunteered at JC Bodyshop during their After-school Program (A.S.P.) and Block Party night on Thursdays. For A.S.P, I helped kids with their homework, co-led a small group and was in charge of many different kinds of activities (such as Madden or Guitar Hero Tournaments). Block Party had more of a community center type feel. Most of what I did for Block Party was playing basketball with the students and building relationships with them.
Both of these experiences produced a lot of frustration for me. A.S.P. was always in a state of constant anarchy, and with the exception of a few kids, no one displayed any respect for each other, much the less for the JC sponsors. Block Party was very unorganized. This created a lot of confusion for me in that I often found it hard to find anything important to do, besides building relationships.
I realize now that I probably should have been more proactive in finding other jobs to do and talking with Pastor Mike about my concerns, but unfortunately it is too late now. If I were to do this whole thing again, I would be more assertive and ask for different kinds of jobs.
Another very frustrating aspect of the practicum was the lack of face time with my supervisor. I did not realize at the beginning of the practicum that I needed ten supervised hours with my supervisor, and then once I noticed it, Pastor Mike was barely around anymore. I did get some one-on-one time with Pastor Brittan, probably accumulating about two hours with him, but I hardly got to talk to Pastor Mike at all, much the less spend supervised hours with him.
I feel like I learned a lot and grew both personally and professionally, although most of what I learned was what not to do. I made many mistakes in my first practicum, and I feel like I have learned some valuable lessons about dealing with people. Spiritually, I have been on a roller coaster ride all semester. It seemed like right when I was feeling the best spiritually, I would have a terrible day at practicum and vice-versa. Hopefully next semester I can maintain better spiritual balance.
Overall, this experience has been very helpful to me, but also very frustrating. I suppose you could contribute some of my frustrations as growing pains, but I also think that the organizational aspects of the JC Bodyshop internship program could be greatly improved.

Week 9 (6:30-8-30) Blockparty

This will be a short post, seeing that I will be making my final reflection in just a second here.

Well, today was pretty good. A.S.P. is over now for the semester, so I just did Block Party today. We just hung out and played basketball most of the time. It is kind of nice to have the freedom to just relate with students, but at the same time, I wish the Pastors would give us more to do. It feels so unorganized there sometimes.

I realized today that God has gifted me more toward small town ministries rather than Urban ministries. This is not to say that I cannot develop skill in Urban ministries, but naturally with my unique experiences, I am more fit currently for small town ministry.

This was a down week spiritually for me. Family issues. Bleck.

Week 8 (3:15-8:30) A.S.P & Block Party

This week was kind of a strange one. It was the "Christmas Party" for the after school program, and all we did was watch the movie Elf and give away prizes. Even though we made the activities much more kid friendly, they still couldn't behave or sit still. In fact, they were worse than they were last week. I don't understand it. Then to make everything worse, we rewarded them for their behavior and gave them prizes at the end. It was kind of ridiculous. How are supposed to expect these kids to learn to behave themselves and learn about discipline if we never do ANYTHING to discipline them? Simply taking their names out of the drawing would have been better than nothing. It just seems to like sometimes, they are completely out of control, and yet, I still have not been given any authority to come up with any real consequence. The worst I can do is, "Ok that's it. We're going to go talk to Pastor Mike." Scary.

Block Party was interesting too. The gym was taken up by a fish fry set-up so all the usual Block Party peeps were crammed into the main part of the building. During Block Party, I felt completely useless. No one asked me to do anything, no one I tried to talk to seemed to really respond... all I could really do was be a policeman and make sure kids weren't doing drugs or making out. I thought to myself as twirled my imaginary nightstick that there must be more to youth ministry than this. I was sick of just sitting around and I was feeling like this entire practicum, I have not really done substantial good for any kid there.

If I were to make suggestions about how to fix these things, I would probably say:
1. Give us more responsibility -- Honestly, it seems like our supervisors don't care at all if we're even there sometimes. We show up, say hi to them, and then they basically say, "Go play with the kids. Let us grown ups handle all the real work." I'm sorry, but that really frustrates me sometimes.
2. Make a real plan for discipline and start STICKING to it -- The kids can basically do whatever they want, and as long as they stop doing it for about 5 minutes at a time, no one does anything about it. For me, it would be a lot easier to follow through on discipline if I knew what their policy was about it... (or if they had one)
3. Quit treating the kids like lil' homies and start treating them like adolescents -- This one is on me. I have a habit of trying too hard to make the kids like me. Honestly, it shouldn't be my responsibility to be their best friend, it's my responsibility to be a shephard for them. Sometimes a shephard is really nice to his sheep, but are times when he has to pull the sheep with his staff. Cheesey analogy, and I probably screwed it up, but you get the idea.
4. Have them try to come up answers themselves, rather than spoon-feeding them canned Christianese answers -- I think the kids we are dealing with are old enough to take part in discussions in a small group type setting.

Anyway, I know I have been very critical today, but these are just a few of the things that I have picked up about how not to do things. Don't get me wrong, Pastors Mike and Brittan are awesome, but those are just some of their weaknesses.

Spiritually speaking, it was a roller coaster ride. One night, I was absolutely depressed, the next day I felt way better because that night I had resurrendered my future to God, but then the next day I was low again because of familiy issues. So the week was quite different and difficult for me.

One more post, then this blog is done.

Week 7 (A.S.P. 3:15-6:00; Block Party 6:00-8:15)

Wow I'm a little bit late posting this one. I had a great Thanksgiving though, and I'm ready to rock and roll again.

Week 7 was a very, very difficult experience. For the sake confidentiality, I will not include the gory details, but let's just say that there are some kids that have problems. I spent almost the entire time trying to counsel and help one particular kid. It was a pretty scary situation, but I'm pretty sure the situation ended up resolving itself.

During that week, I have to admit, I was just about at rock bottom spiritually. I was exhausted, discouraged and eager to go home for Thanksgiving. I have to admit also that that Thursday, I really did not want to be there. I want to always have the right attitude about everything, but I definitely had a crummy attitude coming into that day.

The lessons God taught me that week were that sometimes, things will be out of your control, and even if it breaches confidentiality, there are things that you need to report to people for the safety of the child. Things will never be out of God's control however, and he's going to be there helping you along every step of the way.

Week 6 (Thursday: A.S.P 3:30-6; Block Party 6-8:30)

This week basically followed the usual pattern... but let me tell you... this week was BAD. When the time came for the students to listen to Britton give his anti-drug talk during the after school program, the kids basically started rioting right there. Jason summarized it best when he shouted from the balcony in desparation, "CAN THIS END PLEASE?!?!?!?" Britton pulled me aside during the mass chaos to tell me that in youth ministry there are going to be good days and bad days. This was a bad day. He told me that you can't let the bad days get you down, because even when your program is going to pot, you are still ministering to the kids. His words of wisdom to me were interrupted by a flying marker smacking me in the back of the head. A loud rebuking from Britton of the errant marker launcher followed.

During Bodyshop, I must confess, most of my energy was already gone. Anthony comes up to me and says, "Man, you should quit coming on Thursdays and come on Wednesday or Sunday nights." I agreed that I probably should... but I am not usually one to give up on something. I'm really glad that Anthony is doing Block Party. If he wasn't there, I would probably fall over and die halfway through Block Party because of all the policework I would have to do. One thing I've realized about myself through this practicum is that I REALLY hate confrontation. I don't like to yell at kids when they are misbehaving, and I can't understand why they don't just listen to me. That is one area that I want to improve on.

This week spiritually was actually very good. I hardly had any homework this week compared to the previous few weeks, so I had time to spend alone with God and getting some sleep. This next week should be a little bit harder... we'll see how I do this week.

Week 5 (Thursday: A.S.P, Block Party -- 3:15-8:15, Saturday: Barn Bash -- 6:00-11:30)

So it's been a while since my last post... but that is because it has been a while since I've been able to go to JC Bodyshop. First there was fall break, then Pastor Mike was out of town and then finally, after it had been three weeks since my last time at my practicum site, I got to come again.

Thursday was a very rough day, I must confess. It started out very uneventful, since most of the kids I usually play basketball with beforehand hadn't showed up yet. I was pretty hungry, since I ate a very light lunch because I had a paper due the next day. Then everyone showed up... and the trouble began. The kids misbehaved so much during the After School Program that I felt more like a policeman than a youth pastor. I don't think I've had to be that firm with anyone since my little sister was in her terrible twos. One kid had an afro pin and was trying to stab people with it... another kid was being rude and obnoxious, talking out of turn and being downright disruptive... another kid was making fun of me and tapping my shoulder over and over again when he was supposed to be paying attention. It was an awful time. There is a contest going on between groups in the after school program. The team I am helping out with, nicknamed "Team Hardball," was subtracted points on a regular basis for misbehavior, and I basically just wanted to go home.

After the younger kids went home and a lot of the ones causing problems had left, then most of my buddies showed up with high energy levels and I expressed my frustration from the after school program with them. They basically shrugged it off, and we went to go play basketball, I don't mean this to rip on anybody at all, because I realize thet were doing what they were supposed to do, but I felt like I had put up with all the hard stuff from earlier, and then when I had finally gained enough respect to maybe connect a little bit with some of the kids, the other sponsors showed up and took over. At that point, I wanted to try and build relationships with the kids and to try and tell them why the pastors and I were upset with them, but then because the next wave of sponsors came in who had no idea what had been happening, the opportunity was lost. I felt like Thursday was probably the hardest day yet, and I figured it had been a complete failure and that, if anything, I was more distant from the kids than when I began.

On Thursday, Pastor Mike pulled us aside and told us about this "Barn Bash" that they were going to have on Saturday. I was feeling exhausted and frustrated with how things had been going at Bodyshop that day, so I was hesitant to commit to going, but my need for more practucum hours won out over my personal feelings. I went to the Barn Bash expecting to get Barn Thrashed by the kids again. This time, however, things were different. First off, the kids who had been disrespectful to me on Thursday noticed I was there and showed genuine excitement that I was there. "Well that's a pleasant surprise." I thought to myself. Anthony, Angie and I then chaperoned 7 consecutive hay rides in the freezing cold that evening, and surprisingly, the respectfulness continued! Maybe it was something in the starry November skies that resonated with the adolescants souls, or perhaps the excitement of going on a hay ride and eating marshmallows around a campfire overcame their hostility, but at least for one day, the door was open, and relationships were formed.

The main two lessons I learned from these experiences were 1. Even when you feel like you are being hated, you are still having an impact on someone's life, and 2. In order to really get to know your teens, you have to spend time with them outside of the church building.

Hopefully this next week is more like the Barn Bash than what Thursday was like.

Week 4 (3:15-5:00) Afterschool program

3:15-3:45 - Organized and played dodgeball game in gym
3:45-5:00 - Split into small groups; helped Bruce with his group.

Due to our flag football team making the playoffs, I had to skip out a little earlier than usual from my practicum. On arriving at JC, I went into the gym as usual and played some basketball with the few kids who were there. Eventually a whole bus load of kids arrived, and it was my job to keep them all entertained and out of trouble until Pastor Mike came back from picking up some other kids. So with the help of Kyle, (a fellow practicum student), and another JC Sponsor, we got a huge game a dodgeball going in the gym! After playing boys vs. girls at first (dumb idea), we counted them off onto separate teams randomly. I was on a team with a bunch of the guys I usually played basketball with. We had a great time together and I started to feel a hint of respect and friendship coming from these kids. In Intro to Youth Ministry class, we had just been learning tht middle school age kids usually focus on events as their means of relating with people or learning. I realized there in the gym that day that I had gained a lot of respect with these kids because I was having fun with them in an event type setting, and because we were having fun together, not just them having fun and me monitoring them. That was the main lesson I learned that day... Youth Ministry is not about organizing fun activities for teens, you have to be in there with them, practicing incarnational ministry.

I realized that on my syllabus, it says that I have to give a "Spiritual Reflection" on how I've been doing spiritually over the last week. I have to be honest, this week wasn't the greatest for me spiritually. I've been really, realy overloaded with homework and books to read, and I haven't had that much time to read the Bible or spend time alone with God. I know I have to do a better job doing that. It's just so hard to set apart time to just relax and sit at the feet of Jesus when there is so much other stuff that needs doing. I'm praying that God would give me the will power to break away from everything for just 15 minutes a day to have devotions.

JC Bodyshop after school program and Blockparty Week 3 (3:30-8:30)

This last Thursday, I came to the after school program at 3:30 and stayed all the way through the Blockparty, because I needed more hours for the practicum. The way I understand it, the afterschool program is a federally funded program that is geared toward keeping kids in school and away from drugs, so this event is not quite as overtly Christian as the Blockparty.

When I arrived I started out playing basketball with the kids like usual, then we were called into the main auditorium. From there, I helped some kids with their homework. After they were finished, we made some paper airplanes and played hangman. After I stumped all the poor 5th graders with "kayak," Pastor Britton called our attention a skit to illustrate making good choices. When the skit was over and they had a short discussion about what the kids learned from the skit, the after school program concluded and the Blockparty began.

This week at the Blockparty, we were having a kind of "kick-off" party complete with skateboard, dunk and guitar hero competitions. The winners of each competition would receive some pretty nice prizes, so there was quite a bit of motivation to participate. The biggest draw-in though, was a drawing for a brand new Nintendo Wii! We had to monitor the kids pretty carefully to make sure they didn't register to win multiple times.

Pastor Mike put me in charge of the Guitar Hero contest. 12 wannabe "Slashes" lined up for the ultimate classic rock showdown. Although there were many aspiring guitar-heroes, only one could emerge from the pile victorious. A highschool girl walked home with the title of guitar hero champion and a verbal IOU from Pastor Mike for Guitar Hero 3 which comes out sometime in the next month. She hit 495 notes in a row!!! It was insane.

After a moving message from Pastor Mike about standing up against peer-pressure and being strong for God, Pastor Mike called my up onto the stage to draw for the winner of the coveted Nintendo Wii. I handed Mike the slip of paper I had drawn and he read the name of one of the kids I had been helping with his homework during the after school program! YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN HIS FACE!!!! It looked like the poor kid had seen a ghost! He went home that night one happy camper.

Overall, it was a really good experience last Thursday. The one thing I learned more than anything else was that it is okay to just have fun with your youth group sometimes, because it builds a strong community. This last week, because they were busy having a blast, they were actually very well behaved and were much more receptive to Pastor Mike's sermon when it was time for everyone to calm down. If I become a youth pastor, I will definitely have some days set apart just for fun like we did last Thursday.

JC Bodyshop Blockparty Day 2 (6:15-8:30)

So day 2 was an eye-opener. Day one was all about good first impressions, but this time, the masks were off.

I arrived just in time to play a little ball with some of my homies from last week (Donavon, Reese, Terry, Bobby, and a few others), and got schooled again.

After playing some air hockey and ping pong and meeting new people, it was time to congregate for Pasto Mike's lesson of the day. Within five minutes of sitting down, I realized that the guys sitting behind me were much more interested in disobeying Pastor Mike and my orders than they were about learning obedience from the story of Abraham and Issac. It dawned on me then that these kids were there to have fun and really were not THAT interested in coming to know Christ.

Now my youth group at home is waaaay different. Everyone who is there knows that the main reason we are there is to learn about and worship God, with fun being mixed in like a seasoning. For these kids, I think they'd rather swallow lysterene than a story about some guy in the old testament.

So the misbehavior went on for a while until I learned that empty words weren't going to mean anything. I threatened them that if they couldn't at least be respectful then I would come back and sit with them.... then they were quiet for a while... huh imagine that.

The main thing I learned from Day 2: Before they will listen to you, they have to respect you. Before they respect you, you have to earn it. To earn it, you have to mean what you say and say what you mean. I want to be nice as much as I can, but there is a line, and when it is crossed, I will be firm, regardless of how "mean" they think I am. I will earn their respect.

JC Bodyshop Blockparty Day 1 (6:15-8:15)

For my practicum, I decided to help out with JC Bodyshop (which is the youth group of College Wesleyan Church.) One of their ministry opportunities is called the "Blockparty." Mike Hofer, the youth pastor in charge of JC Bodyshop described it as, "the most diverse youth program we have." He said that they got all kinds of kids to come to the Blockparty: goths, skaters, punks, white kids, black kids, hispanic kids, poor, rich, Christian, non-Christian, kids with good families, kids from broken families.

So I went there the first night not knowing what to expect by any means. I was somewhat nervous, walking on unfamiliar turf surrounded by unfamiliar faces. I was surprised to see that, for one of the few times in my life, I was in the racial minority. Most of the kids there were african-american and I couldn't help but feel like I stuck out like a white marble in a bowl of chocolate ice cream.

Now don't get me wrong. I love people of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, and skin tones, but I got a little chance to experience what most african-americans face everyday: being in the minority. And being in the minority always makes you feel self conscious.

Anyway, I was glad to have Anthony, Trent and Corey there. As soon as the doors opened and all the kids came rushing in, we found a few jr. high guys and challenged them to some basketball. I had always considered myself a decent basketball player. I started varsity for a Christian school and averaged 14 points and about 9 rebounds per game. As we played JC sponsers vs. JC students, I soon figured out that, most likely, I would have had a much different view of how "like-Mike" I was, if our Christian school had played teams with african-american players. Needless to say, we got our butts handed to us.

I think that playing, (or trying to play) basketball with them was a necessary step, however, in connecting with these kids where they were at. Obviously basketball is a large part of their lives. Even though we flailed around like fish out of water every time we went up for a rebound, we showed them that we cared about them enough to keep playing even though they were tanning our hides.

That was probably the #1 thing I learned Day one at JC Bodyshop: To connect with people, you have to meet them where they are, even if it means feeling inferior for a while.

Well that's it for day one.

Test Post

Check one two... check one two...

ahem.

Can everybody hear me ok out there?