Author: mission staff

I’m not really sure you can classify Rock Island as a youth group. Do a cluster of young people meet in a group at Rock island? Yes. Are we a traditional youth group? No.

Typically, for sake of time and explanation, anytime someone asks Ron or myself what we do or where we work we will explain that we work at Rock Island, a youth center, in downtown Oklahoma City with kids from the neighborhood. Generally we shy away from the term “youth group” because we don’t function like most youth groups people are accustomed to. We don’t meet on Sundays and Wednesdays. We don’t meet at set times (even though we have set times just for some form of organization) each time we get together. We don’t meet, eat, sing, listen to a devotional thought, hangout and then go back home. Nothing wrong with that, that’s how I grew up doing youth group, but that’s not what youth group looks like at Rock Island.

Here’s what “youth group” looks like at Rock Island this summer. Meet 4, sometimes 5, times per week. Carry boxes of food for families that come for assistance for a few hours a day. Mow some lawns in the neighborhood. Play some video games. Have a weekly Bible study (currently in Luke 19). Paint some houses. Pickup donations from other churches in the Okc and Edmond areas. Eat lunch together, EVERYDAY! Go swimming. Watch movies at Rock Island. Workout in the gym. Play basketball. Move families and their furniture, appliance, beds and clothing to new homes. Work in the prayer room at Cross and Crown and pray for people (some of the students translate for other volunteers also, big help!). Unload 15,000 lbs of food cans, produce and drinks at Cross and Crown.

My point is Rock Island does “youth group” a little differently then most, differently then what I was brought up doing. We didn’t originally plan it this way but that’s the nature of where we work and the youth we are in relationship with on a daily basis. Ron and I have learned that in order to actually have an influence in these kids lives, we have to know them, we have to learn about them and we have to be in their business. And, we are. The best way we know how to do that is to spend as much time with them as possible and get into their lives as much as possible. Do Ron and I want to strangle some of the kids sometimes because we are with them constantly on a daily basis? Yessir, but that’s part of the plan. Not strangling them but being with them long enough that they can be real with us and not hold back or put up a front.

This summer has definitely been a great time of relationship building and learning for everyone involved at Rock Island. We’ll see what the rest of the summer has to offer.

We have been back from Ft. Worth for a few days now and I am still catching up on sleep. Good news is Ron and I had Friday and Saturday to recover, just in time for the official summer program to begin Monday. Regardless of the lack of sleep the trip was one to remember, a definite success. So many stories, lots of fun, plenty of work and a great start to the summer as we solidified several relationships with kids and built up some good steam for the next few months.

We left Monday afternoon around noon and arrived several hours later in Ft. Worth, checked into our hotel and then headed to the home church for the week. When we arrived at the church we were greeted by a room full of teenagers from multiple youth groups throughout the Ft. Worth/Dallas area. After a short worship time we were divided into groups and given our assignments for the week. The Rock Island youth were broken into two different groups and teamed up with other youth groups that were also apart of the work project. Afterwords we enjoyed a great time and meal at Chilis. We then headed back to the hotel, got room assignments and then had some down time to discuss the plan for the week and talk about the theme for the work week, “Called”.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings and afternoons were all very similar. 7:00am wakeup, breakfast, paint and scrap, 12:00 lunch, paint and scrap some more and then clean up around 3:00 each day. For the most part the Rock Island youth did a pretty good job of staying on task. Of course we had the occasional paint fight and lack of interest but it all worked out and the kids got some great work done. After everyone had cleaned up we would make dinner plans. Tuesday night we ordered some pizza to be delivered to the hotel. Wednesday night we joined a youth group at their church and experienced their youth hangout (and ate pizza again). Thursday night was the big finale. We took the kids bowling and had a roommate bowling challenge. Each room would be a team and compete against the other rooms to determine who would choose where we were to eat that night. Well, my team got last, the girls got second and Ron’s team won. They choose Razoos. Not bad.

Thursday night (more like Friday morning) was also the night of the epic “Ft. Worth Prank” that will go down in history as the most ridiculously planned, chaotic, yet very successful prank.

We then headed out early Friday morning and got back to OKC around 1:00pm. We had some great conversations with kids. Got to know alot more about some kids that we didn’t know much about. The kids experienced being apart of a more traditional youth group. The kids shared the love of Christ. What more can you ask for?

Luke