27 September 2007

Feeling small

Today was the first meeting for this term of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland's Full Time Youth Worker day (aka PCI FTYW day).

I was looking forward to seeing some people who i hadn't seen all summer. Upon arrival though I stepped into a room full of lots and lots of faces I didn't know - i felt so so sooooo small. I wondered if I had maybe I had gone into the wrong room, when behind this mass of strange faces I spotted a group of youth workers I knew and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was rather funny though, as the older youth workers all grouped together while all the newbies grouped together.

The whole thing made me think about how it might be for a young person to step into a situation like that. When we have new people come along to our youth group, do they find their own way or do the other young people intentionally invite them into the group of existing friends?

How do we encourage our young people to be able to spot a new person and welocme them in? How do we stop the cliques? How do we break up cliques?

How do we change human nature?

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