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Friday, August 22, 2008

Obtuse Angles

It has been about twelve and half years since I was a pre-teen. I was a little worried that I am way out of the loop. I am new to SuperStart! this year. I came on staff about a month and a half ago. What a month and half it has been! Not only am I new to SuperStart!, but I am new to pre-teen ministry.

In recent years I have spent tons of time working with high school and college students. I was able to relate to them pretty well. God started preparing me for pre-teens about six months before I accepted my position with SuperStart!. Little did I know at the time that he was doing so. I was finishing up my final semesters in school and started Substitute teaching on the side. I signed up to teach high school, then middle school. Well somehow God orchestrated it for me to teach sixth grade everytime I got called. Not only did I do sixth grade, but it was at the same school with the same kids every week. Here were some things I learned about pre-teens through those days of teaching.

1. Don’t mess with pre-teen girls guys, they will eat you alive.

2. Shoes with skates in the bottom of them are really cool.

3. I need to start listening to Hannah Montana.

4. Pre-teens didn’t like books on tape.

5. Football, baseball, and skating are now the cool sports. (I still can’t stand on a skateboard without falling on my face).

6. Pre-teen guys are genuinely looking for a strong male mentor who they can talk (or make things up) about sports with.

7. Pre-teens are at a weird stage in life where they can change personalities at the flip of a switch. One moment they are quiet and shy (flip the switch) the next moment they are the class clown.

8. Pre-teens have more pent up energy than I have ever seen!

9. Pre-teens know more about some technology than I do! Yikes!!!

10. Pre-teens are easily amused by the simple things, like me getting chalk all over my shirt or something.

11. Pre-teens love to be involved. I never had to worry about having a volunteer to read during class because there was always a kid at the edge of his seat screaming at me that he wanted to read.

12. I struggle with 6th grade geometry (oh ok and English). Give me a break it has been twelve years!

As I reflected on my pre-teen days, I started to realize that I am not that out of the loop. Things are still a lot like they were twelve years ago. I am excited to get on tour and start learning even more about Pre-teens but accept the fact that I to can still relate to where they are having been there just a shade over a decade myself.

Let me leave you with a quick story of a pre-teen named Aaron. In sixth grade Aaron was in a co-taught class that had about 56 students. It was during a Geometry lesson when Aaron and his classmates were studying angles. They seemed so simple. It came to the time when the teacher said, “I am going to call on somebody to give me an obtuse triangle off of the page.” All 56 students were on the edge of their seats hoping they could be the one chosen. All of a sudden like a ray of light shinning right on him, Aaron’s name was called out and he had a grin ear to ear! “Well Aaron” the teacher said. Aaron perked up and said, “Angle x,y,b!” Ohhh no, he blew it. In a brief moment of stage freight he gave a right angle instead of an obtuse angle.

That’s right it was me, and I was all shades of red in front of my 55 classmates. Ya know what though, I tell you this to let you know that I have been there and I can relate to how you feel. Being a pre-teen is a hard time. You want to make good impressions, want your friends to think you are cool, and want to be the one who can tell the whole class that an obtuse angle is a straight line. Let me just encourage you by saying you WILL do silly things, say the wrong thing, and often times look really foolish and all shades of red. It is ok though because so will everybody else. So belt out the wrong answer once in a while, but be proud of it because you are pre-teen and that is what you do! These times will pass so make the most of them so in twelve years you have something funny to look back on and laugh at J.


-Aaron Smith
SuperStart! Program Administrator

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Ah to be a preteen again!

I have been traveling with SuperStart now for three years and there is one constant thing about preteens that amaze me every weekend we hold a SuperStart event. I've also been working with our High School Move Conference for the last five years and I'm not surprised to see high schooler's doing this, or even the Jr. highers at Believe. I think I am totally guilty of assuming that because preteens are young they are not capable or even able to understand what they are doing and the meaning of their actions. Shame on me! I'm not talking about anything bad, in fact it's so incredibly good and pure. I'm talking about a preteens ability to worship. If you think a preteen doesn't know what they are doing when they are worshiping I would have to strongly disagree. I see it every weekend and it gives me chills every time. It's that feeling when you are watching "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and everyone yells "MOVE THAT BUS" and the family goes crazy with excitement to see their new home which is better then anything they could have ever dreamed. In that moment you have to take a deep breath to either keep from losing it or to let the flood gate open wide. And you've been holding it back the whole time because you don't want to show that a TV show is making you emotional. That's the feeling I get when I see these preteens worship. I am usually in the back of the audience so I can't hear them as well as up front, so I went to the front one time and was blown away. It's amazing to hear a room of 700 preteens worship louder then a room of 700 adults on a Sunday morning. Preteens are at a special place where they have some bad B.O. because they haven't discovered deodorant yet, but they don't care, and they don't care that they might not be the best singer in the world so they are going to sing the loudest they can because they want to make sure God can hear their praise to Him. I'm not exactly sure where we lose that as we grow up, but I wish we all could be in that special place like preteens, minus the lack of deodorant.

Matt Foreman

Friday, August 8, 2008

Never Turn Out The Lights!

This summer I learned a very valuable lesson in teaching preteens that I would like to pass on. NEVER TURN OUT THE LIGHTS! I know it might sound like a good idea in the planning stage but trust me, it doesn't work during the teaching. Here's what happened:

I was speaking at preteen camp and I was teaching about the importance of being prepared for God to use you. My idea was to tell the parable of the ten virgins (I called them "bridesmaids") and then talk about how scary it would be to not be ready when God opened up an opportunity to use us. To do this I decided to teach the parable of the ten virgins like it was a scary story. I set it up by asking the students if they ever knew that Jesus had told a scary story. Of course they said no and that's when I preceded to share with them the story of the ten virgins. When I was done I asked them if they were scared and (just like I had planned) they told me no because it wasn't a scary story. So I read the story again, only this time I read in a creepy voice over candle light with the sound of a storm playing in the background. My plan was to ask them again if they were scared, and when they still said no I was going to talk about being prepared for God to use us and how scary it would be if we weren't.

I never got that far!

As soon as I lit the candles and turned out the lights the students went crazy! They were screaming, yelling, and some were howling at the moon. After five or six minutes (literally) of trying shush the room, I ended up abandoning the idea and quickly had the lights turned back on. I then tried to make my point, prayed, and walked off the stage in defeat. It was awful. So please let my silly mistake become a lesson to all who are reading this and NEVER TURN OUT THE LIGHTS.

Patrick Snow