2 Tuesdays a month at noon, I meet with a group of almost all retired people to hear reports from and to pray for the missions our church sponsors both here locally and around the world. If you take me out of the group, the average age is probably 70 (or older). The thing I love the most about this group is their ability to tell stories. The amount of history we have in this congregation is breath taking.
This past Tuesday, I had an idea.
I am going to attempt the impossible. I am going to try to get that group to work along side the high school youth group in order to raise money for Rwanda Partners. That is right, I want the old retired people (70-85) to work along side teenagers. Has this ever been attempted before? At least in this church, these 2 groups have had very little (if anything) to do with one another.
So, here is my thinking. I am going to try to get some old volunteers and have them reflect on what the world was like when they were 15 (or around 15 if they cannot remember exactly) years old. This would date back to the 30s for some of the people in our church.
When I have the years they were 15, I'll put the high school kids on Google and Wikipedia to find out everything they can about that year. Things such as who was president, and news items such as war, the great depression, issues people were concerned with, whatever else they come up with.
So, the night of the fundraiser, I'll have the parents bring ice cream for a dessert and start the program which will look something like this:
I'll have the student who researched the year for the person they were assigned to give an introduction as to when _____ was 15 years old.... and have them give a snapshot of the world that year. Then I'll have the person come up and share what it was like for them personally (not in the world) when they were 15. They can talk about things such as where they lived, what church they went to, what did youth ministry look like, who were their teachers, what games did they play, what invention did everyone really want (like the iPod today) and what ever else they can think of. They are such amazing storytellers anyway, they will do a great job.
I think the rest of the church would love to come out and hear these stories and get to know the eldest people of the church a little better. We can collect an offering and 100% of it will go to missions.
When I get this pulled off in a couple of months, I'll let you know how it goes.
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