Help! I'm New to Capernaum!

A guest post by Molly Sarchet....

What have I gotten myself into, you have no idea what you’re doing!? This question is on repeat in my head as I sit in the house that I’m living in for 1 year in Franklin Tennessee while I work with Nashville Capernaum, and the Southern Division to learn any and everything about Young Life’s Capernaum Ministry.  Until August 1^st, all I have known for the past 8 years of my experience with Young Life, is your traditional club. My high school club in Texas, and where I lead in college did not have Capernaum, so when I took the leap of faith in April to accept a job with Young Life Capernaum Immersion I was unaware of all that I was getting into.

These past 9 weeks that I have lived in Tennessee I have felt like I’m back in college because I am clueless, and since I had absolutely no experience with a Capernaum club I have learned something new every day. For instance a question I had that I was just going to wait to hear someone important say it, HOW DO I SAY THIS WORD!? I’ve heard it pronounced Ka-Per-Num, and Ka-Per-Knee-Um…  Capernaum can be pronounced both ways, but so the name can consistently be recognized world wide it is pronounced Ka-Per-Knee-Um.

Since you are now an expert in saying the name, you are probably wondering just what Capernaum is, and why it is a separate club from traditional Young Life. Young Life Capernaum is an all-inclusive ministry for our high school friends with disabilities, both developmental and intellectual. Capernaum gives the opportunity for our friends to experience the same God that knows us and loves us. Young Life Capernaum is a club designed with them in mind, where Katy Perry and Taylor Swift songs are always welcomed, a place where friends hug the first time they meet each other. Young Life Capernaum is a place where friends, leaders, and buddies encourage one another to face our fears, to chase after our dreams, and to love God, and love others. Young Life Capernaum is making sure the entire body of Christ is being reached, that we are being friends to the friend-less and loving those who feel unloved and over looked.

The party starts at Capernaum the second you walk through the door, with fun name tags and leaders to greet you, our friends get to hang out and talk to people who are genuinely interested in what is going on in their life, whether its what color glitter they have carefully picked out to match the nail polish underneath, or how Vanderbilt is the greatest University to ever exist not to mention how awesome their football team is, leaders are listening and loving our friends. Young Life Capernaum understands the importance of sharing a meal with people who love you, and the conversations that happen over a dinner table. Club starts with a meal served to our friends, because just like you and I a full stomach is a focused stomach. I can never focus when I’m hungry and neither can our friends, and who doesn’t love some free food!? After dinner all of our friends join us in our club room where we sing two or three songs about God’s love for us. (Hand motions are always a plus) After filling the room with music, we all take a seat and listen to one of our Capernaum Leaders tell a story about Jesus, this semester our club in Nashville is talking about Jesus calming the storm. We’ll talk about the same story for all of our fall clubs and in our Campaigners lessons. Talking through the same story is a great way for our friends to understand and continue to learn about Jesus. During the club talk our Leaders use visuals like our giant cardboard boat so our friends can see the story happening in front of them. After the story is told we break out into small groups, or cabin time and talk with our friends about the story, what they liked and what they might have questions about, continuing the conversation and helping to lead them to the answers. When that wraps up after about 10 minutes we get to stand back up and sing songs like Party in The USA, and Shake It Out, the excitement and smiles you see on the faces around the room is one of the most beautiful sights in the world. Dance moves, and loud voices fade out to the sound of laughter as a brave leader dressed in what is probably a mix matched outfit comes dancing into the room to share another gift with us: the skit and game. Laughter is a common language between everyone verbal, or non-verbal, smiles from ear to ear, and joy. Our skit characters have funny names, and silly problems and they always need the help of our friends to find a solution. Our friends are picked to play games and to be in the spotlight. With shouts of encouragement from our leaders and friends the contestants compete in what is typically an absurd task, like kicking off your shoes to pick Swedish fish out a bucket filled with water only using your toes.  Once the game is over then we celebrate a fun club, and the time we have spent with our friends and give them a short reminder of what we talked about and let them go to meet their parents. 

Our clubs work well because we have two types of volunteers who help us out. Leaders and Buddies, these people are the backbone of a Capernaum club. Young Life leaders are college students, or people who have full time careers but love getting to share Jesus to junior high, and high school students. They commit to doing contact work, which is hanging out with our friends and building relationships with them; they lead small groups, play guitar at club, and give club talks about Jesus. Leaders take the role of being someone who is a significant person in our friends’ lives, a permanent friend. Capernaum Buddies can be anyone from college students, people with careers, high school students, parents, or a group of Campaigner kids from another Young Life Club, who want to be friends with our Capernaum friends, to stand with them at club, to help with dinner, and to share laughs and smiles with. Buddies at our Capernaum clubs aren’t always the same faces, Buddies are there for club, and if we need more hands on deck. They’re our extra helpers and we love them!

Young Life Capernaum is a place where you not only get to tell our friends with disabilities about a God who knows and loves them, but a place where as a leader, buddy, or someone on staff you experience a God who is loving, kind, full of laughter, and joy. It’s a place where you step into a club room and you see what unconditional, unbiased love looks like. A love that typically is modeled by our friends, like Anna who will give every person in the room a genuine hug and smile that reaches from ear to ear before she leaves because she knows the importance of letting people know they’re significant in her life.