Shared Memories and the Spiritual Value of Group Activities

It has been way too long since this blog has been updated. Forgiveness, please. Next month, we are taking our middle school students to Canobie Lake Park and our high school students to Six Flags. On the face of it, these just look like fun ways to spend a summer day. And certainly, that is true. For a roller coaster enthusiast like me, I can't wait to go. But I believe that there is something far more important happening on these trips then multiple trips on Bizarro.

First, is the strategic timing of the events themselves. We go right after we welcome our new 7th graders to SURGE and our new freshmen to HighLight. This is a great chance for our new students to be incorporated and included with the rest of the group. This is a chance for them to build relationships with the students in the grade ahead of them and closer connections with their own classmates. It is their first chance to be a part of the shared history of the group.

 Which brings me to my second point. Shared memories are vital for the life of a group. It can help build connections between people who don't have too many points of connection. It can help level the playing field for people who don't have as long of a history with our group as others. For instance, we have many students who have known each other since sharing crayons in the Lamb's Workshop preschool. We have many students who have been together through VBS after VBS and through Sunday School and Confirmation. We also have students who have not been a part of us for that long and who end up feeling a bit left out of the group history. The Canobie trip and the Six Flags trip and other trips like them make them a part of the group history, and give them a memory to share with everyone else in the group.

This is vitally important. One of our core values is our "Relationship with Each Other." We value fellowship and friendship and relationship at a peer level and think it is of great importance in the spiritual development of students. From my perspective, this isn't just a fun day of roller coasters and fried dough. This is a chance for our students to build relationships with one another by connecting outside of routine for the purpose of building a history together. This base level friendship can then be the foundation upon which we build accountability, encouragement, community, and service. These kind of trips pay dividends in small groups, in Bible studies, in youth group gatherings because it helps our students be more aware of each other, more comfortable with each other, and more trusting of each other because they have a longer history together.

So while these events, in and of itself, may not have the spiritual impact of Winterfest or CHIC or even a regular night of HighLight, they do help us build a shared memory as a group and draw students closer to one another.