A few more rows added to the DNA scarf.

Yesterday evening was my first night as one of the three "youth leaders" at church. Oh, my. All I can say is I now see why I don't work with under-18s on a regular basis. It was pure chaos, it was hard to get the children to focus, three boys kept making flatulence jokes about their brother (who was sitting there, looking hangdog. I'm not sure if this is an actual problem of his or if his brothers were just being typical brothers, but it was hard to stop).

All I can say is: now I wish I had joined the choir (which meets at the same time). But then again, as the old Irish proverb says, "Every beginning is weak", so perhaps it will get better. I guess it's time to start searching for youth activities - the pre-college-student who ran the activity last night was at least able to convey the main point that the church is not the building but the people. (Although his secondary point, that people who are together in a church work together and build each other up was probably lost in the flurry of "C. just farted again!" jokes.). I don't know. I'm never comfortable disciplining children in their parents' absence, but I think when it's my turn to lead, I'm going to have to figure out some way of requiring at least a minimal level of respect for each other.

my first lesson might just be on "sibling rivalry" and look at the Prodigal Son or perhaps Mary and Martha (they WERE sisters, right?). Sadly, I feel that some of this is going to be the blind leading the blind - I am not as Biblically literate or theological-teaching minded as I think the people who nominated me for this think I am.

I'm also contemplating doing "Christian crafts" occasionally - maybe have them make Ojos de Dios (another link is here), or Chrismons at Christmastime, or...well, I'm gonna have to hit the Christian sites to see what else there is. There has to be more stuff out there - thousands of youth leaders with Web access and an itch to share must lead to material I can adapt and use. Or at least, I hope.