Ben E Lou
05-24-2005, 10:14 AM
I just got an IM that I responded to, and I've read little comments here and there that would indicate that most people on here have, I suspect, an incorrect impression of exactly what I do, and specifically with the kinds of kids I hang out with. The group I lead is not your typical "youth group." We're an outreach organization. We build relationships with kids who have little/no church background or who are just pew-warmers (i.e. mom and/or dad make 'em go, but they have no real interest in faith for themselves). The huge majority of the kids that are involved in my ministry are pretty wild partiers. Most of them are getting drunk every weekend, smoking pot (and sometimes doing harder drugs) regularly, having sex--sometimes unprotected; they're drinking and driving, the whole nine yards. What a lot of people don't realize is that many (maybe even MOST) kids living like that really do have an interest in spiritual matters, God, Christ, etc., but they'd be completely unaccepted by most church youth group kids--and even by many church youth pastors, sadly.
Point being, Bill Venable, for example, was a *VERY* rare kid involved in my organization--a kid who really was serious about his faith and trying to live it out. If you recall the other two deaths of kids I've known in the last couple of years, Hannah (the girl killed in a motorcycle wreck after her boyfriend and several others were down in an industrial park racing...) and Matt (the kid who committed suicide last spring and who had serious drug/alcohol issues before that), they're stories are, quite frankly, much more typical of the kids I know best and who are involved in the ministry that I lead.
I'll give you a scenario that I was dealing with just yesterday to better explain the kinds of kids I spend most of my time with. I spent 2-3 hours yesterday afternoon with a guy who just finished his Junior year, who we'll call "Greg." I know Greg very well, well enough to be proactive with him when I hear of big stuff going down with him, so when I heard rumors here and there of a situation that occurred weekend, I called him up and said, "let's get together." When I finally got him to give me what I think is the whole story, I ended up having to explain to Greg why it really was a bad idea for him to help some of his friends--who are sophomore 15 and 16-year-old girls--get away with lying to their parents and going off with some of the seediest college-aged guys I know (one of the two ringleaders of this group of guys, "Darren" has done a good bit of slingin in the past, and probably still is, and the other, "Kevin" is just your basic all-around scumbag). It turns out that on many evenings, Greg and some of his buddies would go pick up these girls at one of their houses, pretending like they were all going to the movies together. (Greg and his buddies are considered to be some of the more-respectable guys within this particular group of kids.) Greg would then meet up with Darren, Kevin, and company. The girls would then go out to college parties with the older guys and their friends (yeah, lovely), while Greg and his buddies would go off to the movies, or go smoke the free/cheap pot they were in all likelihood getting from Darren in return for getting the chicks to them. (That's an assumption I'm making about where Greg gets his weed. Greg has told me that he smokes weed a good bit, and I know that he doesn't have a job. I've heard rumors here and there that some of the middle schoolers I know have gotten weed from Greg, but I can't see him making THAT much of a profit off of them to support as much as he's told me he smokes. Greg probably doesn't know that I know about Darren's source of alternate income, and would never want to be the one that told me about it.) At any rate, at the end of the night, Greg and his buddies would meet up with the girls, who'd been dropped off by Darren, Kevin and company behind an elementary school near their house, then take the girls home.
Well, last weekend, it seems that one of the girls, "Anita," got particularly wasted while hanging out with the college guys--so wasted that when she walked into her house, she couldn't hide it from her mom. Her mom asked where she'd been that night. Anita had enough of her faculties to realize that saying "with 'Darren' and 'Kevin'" would have been a *REALLY* bad idea, so she said, "with 'Greg' and them." So now, being older and supposedly more mature, Greg has got himself in just as much of a pickle as Anita, even though he happened to remain cold sober that night. (Greg is one of few of the kids I know well that I'm convinced rarely/never drives while under the influence.) Greg was trying to say, "How can I get the trust back of everybody's parents?" HA!!! It took me at least a half an hour to convince him that he was NOT being a "good friend to them" by helping them hook up with Darren and Kevin's crowd. Once I got him there, he finally came to the conclusion that he was culpable in all of this mess, too.
Oh, and by the way, this is the third time that Greg has gotten in residual trouble because of this particular group of girls. He's really much more straight-laced than they are.
Oh yes, and how did Anita and her friends get hooked up with these college-aged guys and their buddies to begin with??? You guessed it, boys and girls, both Anita and Darren were on the Colorado trip last summer; Anita had just finished her freshman year in HS, and Darren had just graduated. Darren apparently successfully put the moves on her at some point during the course of the week out there. Ugh.
Point being, Bill Venable, for example, was a *VERY* rare kid involved in my organization--a kid who really was serious about his faith and trying to live it out. If you recall the other two deaths of kids I've known in the last couple of years, Hannah (the girl killed in a motorcycle wreck after her boyfriend and several others were down in an industrial park racing...) and Matt (the kid who committed suicide last spring and who had serious drug/alcohol issues before that), they're stories are, quite frankly, much more typical of the kids I know best and who are involved in the ministry that I lead.
I'll give you a scenario that I was dealing with just yesterday to better explain the kinds of kids I spend most of my time with. I spent 2-3 hours yesterday afternoon with a guy who just finished his Junior year, who we'll call "Greg." I know Greg very well, well enough to be proactive with him when I hear of big stuff going down with him, so when I heard rumors here and there of a situation that occurred weekend, I called him up and said, "let's get together." When I finally got him to give me what I think is the whole story, I ended up having to explain to Greg why it really was a bad idea for him to help some of his friends--who are sophomore 15 and 16-year-old girls--get away with lying to their parents and going off with some of the seediest college-aged guys I know (one of the two ringleaders of this group of guys, "Darren" has done a good bit of slingin in the past, and probably still is, and the other, "Kevin" is just your basic all-around scumbag). It turns out that on many evenings, Greg and some of his buddies would go pick up these girls at one of their houses, pretending like they were all going to the movies together. (Greg and his buddies are considered to be some of the more-respectable guys within this particular group of kids.) Greg would then meet up with Darren, Kevin, and company. The girls would then go out to college parties with the older guys and their friends (yeah, lovely), while Greg and his buddies would go off to the movies, or go smoke the free/cheap pot they were in all likelihood getting from Darren in return for getting the chicks to them. (That's an assumption I'm making about where Greg gets his weed. Greg has told me that he smokes weed a good bit, and I know that he doesn't have a job. I've heard rumors here and there that some of the middle schoolers I know have gotten weed from Greg, but I can't see him making THAT much of a profit off of them to support as much as he's told me he smokes. Greg probably doesn't know that I know about Darren's source of alternate income, and would never want to be the one that told me about it.) At any rate, at the end of the night, Greg and his buddies would meet up with the girls, who'd been dropped off by Darren, Kevin and company behind an elementary school near their house, then take the girls home.
Well, last weekend, it seems that one of the girls, "Anita," got particularly wasted while hanging out with the college guys--so wasted that when she walked into her house, she couldn't hide it from her mom. Her mom asked where she'd been that night. Anita had enough of her faculties to realize that saying "with 'Darren' and 'Kevin'" would have been a *REALLY* bad idea, so she said, "with 'Greg' and them." So now, being older and supposedly more mature, Greg has got himself in just as much of a pickle as Anita, even though he happened to remain cold sober that night. (Greg is one of few of the kids I know well that I'm convinced rarely/never drives while under the influence.) Greg was trying to say, "How can I get the trust back of everybody's parents?" HA!!! It took me at least a half an hour to convince him that he was NOT being a "good friend to them" by helping them hook up with Darren and Kevin's crowd. Once I got him there, he finally came to the conclusion that he was culpable in all of this mess, too.
Oh, and by the way, this is the third time that Greg has gotten in residual trouble because of this particular group of girls. He's really much more straight-laced than they are.
Oh yes, and how did Anita and her friends get hooked up with these college-aged guys and their buddies to begin with??? You guessed it, boys and girls, both Anita and Darren were on the Colorado trip last summer; Anita had just finished her freshman year in HS, and Darren had just graduated. Darren apparently successfully put the moves on her at some point during the course of the week out there. Ugh.