YL Capernaum Everywhere

Thank you Danielle Guy for this great club idea!   Mixers Scavenger hunt: Break the room into teams.   Each team’s hints are divided by color. For example, the blue teams hints are all on blue paper, green is all green, and yellow is all yellow. Each team’s hints are the same and hidden in the same place. Change up the order for each team so that they’re not all going to the same place at the same time. These examples are specific to my club so you’d have to adjust to fit yours: Hand piece of paper with first step: Take a selfie of your whole group with the “dessert lady” Once they take the photo, the dessert lady will hand them their first clue . Clues are on paper with a letter (will spell out Young Life at the end). First paper has a Y on back and then the next clue on other side. (these are specific to a club in Jackson, MS so feel free to change them up to work with your location) Y: Leap frog to the music station O: As a group sing the ch...

As we continue to think about helping our friends serve, it often will be individual conversations and adaptations. Danielle Guy in Jackson, MS recently walked through the process with one of her friends and has shared it with us. Peyton is 23, thus aging out of Capernaum, but he absolutely loves it! During the day Peyton works as a host/busboy at a local restaurant, and one of my adult leaders who heads up our meals thought it could be cool to have Peyton help her out with that at club. That leader and I met with Peyton and his parents to talk about it and everyone seemed to love the idea. After a lot of talking and planning, we sat down to make it official! We let Peyton know what it meant to be a helper at Capernaum as well as how and why it will look different than when he was attending. I handed his parents Young Life's mission statement that we give to all leaders and handed Peyton an adapted one that pertained to him. This was easy for him to understand and he read eac...

In his book “Prayer”, Tim Keller writes, “Prayer is faith become audible.” Spending time with our friends with disabilities, they often teach us more about prayer than we teach them. They show me there is no one way to communicate with the Father. They show me how simple it can be to engage and worship him through prayer. At Fall Camp, we had a friend who was asked to pray with the leadership team before they went on stage. “Jesus, I love you and I believe in you.” It was simple yet profound. However, not all of our friends have the confidence to pray on stage or the use of verbal communication. How do we begin to teach our friends with varying abilities how to communicate with their Father?  Laurel and Kaitlyn, both on Tennessee Capernaum staff, held a Campaigner overnight in which the focus was prayer. They led one activity in particular that worked well for the whole group: Each student got a sheet of paper. First, they wrote their name. (For some, leaders acted as the...

By Maison Lowery I have a feeling many people reading this blog have also read the book “Love Does” by Bob Goff. One chapter in this book focuses on the game “Bigger and Better.” The game goes as follows: You start with something small like a nickel and boldly knock on someone’s door. When they answer, you ask for something “bigger and better” than what you start with - in this case, only a nickel. In Bob’s example, after many knocks, his nickel worked its way up to a CAR! Walking with Jesus can be like a game of “Bigger and Better.” Jesus can take something that seems so small and do amazing things with it. He is the guy who fed thousands of people with just a few fish and loaves of bread! In the bible (I used the storybook bible), there is a story of a woman who gave Jesus her most prized possession. The woman didn’t have a lot to offer. She was poor and didn’t have many belongings, but she did have a glass jar of perfume. Back in her time, perfume was a prized asset, most likely...

We LOVE donuts so much that we’re bringing you thoughts from another Donut Club! Can there be too many variations on donut clubs?! Absolutely not, that’s like saying there could be too many flavors of donuts. Impossible. So enjoy another flavor of fun…. The night started off with kids and leaders mingling around the room, completing a “Donut Stop Believin’” coloring sheet that was made and copied for all. Club began with everyone singing ‘Don't Stop Believin’ together before the talk. This club is spending the semester talking about Jesus’ I AM statements, so in true form to the club theme, they discussed Jesus being the bread of life. He is the one who sustains us. He gives us His energy to keep pressing on when life is hard. They also talked about how there are many things in life that give us a “sugar rush” like donuts but Jesus invites us to discover substance and a meaningful life through a relationship with Him! For Games and Activities they did: Donut Decoratin...

By Maison Lowery As someone on Young Life staff or as a volunteer Young Life leader, we often find ourselves in some strange situations. Earlier in the summer at work week, I had one of those “what am I doing?!” moments. Our area took seven students to participate in work week at Sharptop Cove. We were the only Capernaum representatives and the rest of the camp was college students. The last night of camp, we, the Capernaum crew, were scheduled to put on a talent show for the camp. Earlier in the day, we asked what everyone wanted to do for his or her talent. One of our friends decided he wanted to slow dance to the 7Eventh Time Down hit, “God is on the move.” After a slight pause and a scan of the room he points and says, “HER.” Caught off guard he goes on to pull me on the stage. This “her” was apparently my big break. We would now be performing “God is on the move” in front of 300+ college students. That evening when the time for the show was upon us my friend rounded the c...