People learn best through hands on experience and observation. At least, that’s how I learn and I’m assuming you’re the same. In our student ministry, we spend every other Sunday night preparing our high school seniors for college. We talk to them about everything we can think of: money, faith, dating, balance, picking a major, drinking, etc. I firmly believe that these conversations have an impact in helping our students prepare for the their transition to college but one event from a few years ago trumped them all. You see, every spring we do an event for our seniors called Senior Sneak. It’s a weekend retreat to an undisclosed location for fun and extended training on college transition. It’s one of our milestone events and it’s a little fancier than anything else we put on. It’s our way of blessing our seniors one last time before they run off to college.
We’ve learned over the years that the weekend we choose for this event is hugely important. For example, don’t schedule it on a Prom or musical weekends. We fancy ourselves at being highly skilled at picking the right weekend. However, sometimes things surprise us. As it turns out, one year we inadvertently scheduled our retreat for Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Call me boring, but I don’t really pay attention to St. Patty’s so it was completely off my radar.
The funny thing about Chicago on St. Patrick’s day weekend is that it gets nutty. Actually, it gets really nutty. They dye the river green and then proceed to party down. In the words of Dr. Seuss, they “drink, drink, drink, drink, DRINK!” This is what I mean by learning from experience and observation. We essentially provided our students with a front row seat of first semester frat parties. On a side note, how do they dye the river green? Is it just a whole lot of green Kool-Aid?
Although there were quite a few awkward moments as we walked through the city, the weekend ended up being a great experience for our small group leaders and students. All the partying around us provided context for great conversations about boundaries, balance and the partying scene. Sometimes youth groups and churches are guilty of ignoring the realities of the “real world.” One way or another, we need to make sure that our students aren’t surprised by what they encounter. They ought to be prepared to face reality.
I don’t know that I would recommend taking your students to Chicago for St. Patrick’s Day but I do recommend getting your seniors away with their small group leaders for strategic conversations about their upcoming freshman year of college. Are they ready to face the pressures, challenges and opportunities? Now is the time to talk about it.
I’d be happy to share the playbook for our Senior Sneak weekend if you’re interested. And if you have a recipe for green dye please let me know.
