oh, yeah. how ’bout some choice quotes (all word-for-word true) from my 7th grade guys small group?
7th grade guy: my house is sold and gone
other 7th grade guy: you mean, it’s gone gone?
7th grade guy: my high this week is that my mom is going to get me hot pink spray paint to paint my crutches
7th grade guy: in school we’re reading “hear my cry”
other 7th grade guy: isn’t that about the ax and the tree?
third 7th grade guy: dude, that’s johnny appleseed
7th grade guy: we got a new trailer, and the wheels are bigger than my dad’s truck
other 7th grade guy: wait, bigger than the entire truck?
7th grade guy: i’ve learned from experience that i can soothe women
this last one takes a little set-up explanation:
we started using my old “Wild Truth Bible Lessons: Picture of God” curriculum for the remaining weeks of this school year. i was leading the guys in a lesson on how “God is a Listener.” those lessons all have embedded in them the idea that, since this attribute is part of god’s character, and we’re made in the image of god, we should be able to develop that characteristic also. in this sense, we were talking about how the guys could be better listeners. i had them pair up, and instructed person “a” in each pair to describe a recent family vacation while person “b” listened. as i was describing this, i thought to myself, “shoot, some of these guys have had amazing vacations, and some have never left their homes.” so i added, “it doesn’t hvae to be your last vacation — it can be any vacation.” i thought, “that still doesn’t do it.” so i added, “really, it doesn’t even have to be a real vacation — you can describe an imaginary vacation if you want!”
yeah, adjusting on the fly.
when i said “go,” my co-leader and i surprised them by instantly making ridiculous amounts of noise and acting in distracting ways. and we only gave them about 30 seconds for the task; so some of them never got to any story at all, speaking or listening. they were merely disoriented and trying to adjust.
but when i asked if any of the listeners could recount the vacation story of their partner, i got this:
he went on the journey of the epic of birth. he came out in an explosion of slime, like on nickelodeon