The First Youth Week

I approached the summer of 1988 with great anticipation and a little bit of trepidation.  This was the year I was going to show everyone in our community and in North Carolina Yearly Meeting what a real summer youth ministry should look like.  I wanted to go big.  And I needed it to go well.  My philosophy was that youth had lots of spare time and were often bored during summer vacation, and that as a youth ministry part of our task was to fill the void.  I knew going in to my planning that we had two trips planned- Summer Safari week at Myrtle Beach and a trip to Atlanta to see the Braves play.  We would continue to meet on Sunday afternoons for YFYF (Young Friends Youth Fellowship) and on Wednesday nights for Rec Room (which included outings to local recreation spots and game nights in the Youth Room).  But to really make this summer special, I needed another big event.

I don't remember how I came up with the Youth Week concept.  I am positive I was not the first to use that name, but at the time I didn't know of anyone else who was doing it.  My original idea was to do it like a week long camp, only with kids going home to sleep.  I wanted the events to be special, odd and things the students would want to bring their friends to.  The first Youth Week in 1988 was the start of a tradition that would grow into an amazing event.  But it was just a start...

Later on, Youth Week would include great guest speakers like Duffy Robbins and Mike Williams.  For this first attempt our guest speaker was my old friend Terry Venable.  Later on, there would be guest musicians like Spooky Tuesday and Lost And Found.  For the original Youth Week, the only guest musician was me, playing a concert at the long defunct Covered Bridge Pizza Parlor on Friday night.  Later on, we had incredible drama from Curt Cloninger and Ted and Lee.  This time the only drama came from our own spontaneous melodramas.  We went to Carowinds for a day; we had Ice Cream Olympics after Terry spoke; and we rented the Wesleyan Center for basketball, volleyball and swimming one night  Looking back, it was not a spectacular event.  But it did set a tone.  It told the community that we were going own the summer and they could count on us to plan exciting events in the years to come.  And we did...

As the years went by, Youth Week became my favorite part of the summer because it challenged me creatively and spiritually to reach youth in new and exciting ways.  There will be many more stories about Youth Week events.  And sometime along the way you will hear about what would would have been the greatest Youth Week ever- if I hadn't messed it up- twice.

Because of Jesus,