Is Youth Group "Fun" Counterproductive?

Today I read an article from The Red Bull Gospel | LeadershipJournal.net at www.christianitytoday.com titled "It takes more than Pizza and video games to give young people a faith that endures". It was about how youth groups that have only "fun" time are successful at entertaining teenagers but don't give those same people the tools they need to endure in their faith so after the teen years the teens are leaving the church in mass exodus. I identified with the article in an interesting way.

A lot of the people the article talked about were people who had left the faith but had a blast at youth group. This is not me. In fact it's the exact opposite of me. I was the girl interested in the bible, confused by it, so I went to youth group to learn about it. But when I found out 75% of the time we played dodge ball and the other 25% was somewhat scripture based somewhat a broken record of "please pay attention" I was so discouraged youth group became a secondary priority to watching TV. And I felt guilty about that because I thought it made my faith not a priority, which isn't really how I felt. I did go to church Sundays, even during college, but most of the time that was because my parents gave me a ride and I felt like I was letting down God if I didn't go.

Thankfully I don’t feel that way anymore. I now know not going to a group where one isn't getting the spiritual food they need does not mean I am letting down God or that faith isn't a priority. And through my perseverance in going to Church, despite my frustrations, I've learned that like most things in life at church you get what you give. There were times I was so frustrated with church I didn't want to open myself up to the possibility it could do anything for me, but that's changed. During my frustration I had the chance to concentrate on my personal relationship with God and he's patiently, he needed a lot of it, guided me and taught me how I can be a part of Christ's body in the church.

Prayer is huge. I find myself enjoying Los Angeles traffic because it's a great time to pray and when you pray during traffic the more you get stuck in it the better the day seems to go. I know it's counter intuitive but true. And prayer doesn't have to be elaborate, like I say in my novel, if you really hope for something you say a prayer. And contrary to what some believe, what I used to believe, prayers don't have to be selfless. Listing off a wish for every item in Tiffany's is not a good prayer but asking for a successful career, keeping in mind success is sometimes relative, isn't bad at all. And I tend to boil things down to my needs instead of desires. I want my career to take off now, probably will come with the response "not yet, patience young grasshopper" (God does have a sense of humor). So instead I say, "give me patience and the strength to endure" which often means God presents opportunities I don't really want to take in order to acquire those skills so I have to have a little faith.

Also, prayers don't have to be elaborate. Sometimes I just talk to myself during traffic (yes I am the weird girl talking to herself in her car). I tell God about my dreams and my stories, which I hope, with his help will make sense and mean something.

Other than prayer, volunteering is a big thing. Vacation Bible School, church office work, teaching children are all ways I've gotten involved. It's lead to good things, relationships with people who are good friends, a good relationship with the church staff, work for me as a babysitter where I've learned patience and gotten a great deal of validation for my efforts, which is really great nourishment for my spirit. And just recently I was installed as a deacon, where I get to learn a lot about how the church works and help make it work better where things aren't working.

Sunday worship is also important, giving us the tools for life and for the week. The first few Sunday's getting that can opener, pick ax, umbrella you have no idea what to do with is frustrating. But when you have to open a can of worms, climb a mountain, weather a storm they come in handy. And after awhile I find I'm like a fish. I had fish as a kid, many people have. Do you remember putting in those flakes of food and the fish just gobbled them up? I am those fish, sermons, classes, literature, are those flakes. I gobble them up but eating too much makes me sick (I get confused) so unlike a fish, at least my fat fish, I pace myself.

Finally, I wanted to mention David Bisbee my youth group leader, he was great, it's a hard crowd to work with while they are going through a hard time of life. I do remember one scriptural lesson he gave about belief being enough, which compared biblical characters to a specific instance of war heroism and a football player that was both entertaining and educational, and I don't like football (it just doesn't make sense to me).

The point of this post is there are teens who want to learn about the bible and there is a way to entertain and give spiritual food/tools. I know there is and I'm working on a Christian sitcom to prove it. And I want to thank the article for giving me an idea, which will help me with the sitcom.

7 reasons Why Writers Should Babysit as Their “Day Job”

This has been my experience; I’ve been a writer since I could. After college I didn’t know what to do to support myself. All I wanted to do was write, but I couldn’t make a living doing that, not until I finished something and made it good, which takes time. I moved in with my parents to help. By chance I got a lot of babysitting jobs (sits), a few hours here and there. It’s a rewarding experience in and of itself and it’s also made me a more efficient and better writer. Now onto the seven reasons I’ve found babysitting to be a good paying job for a writer (in no particular order);

1.Babysitting teaches patients; Since writing takes time, one of the things I knew I needed to learn was patience. Looking after children, trying to get them to eat, go to bed, forces one to be patient. And I’ve found myself more patient with myself when I write.

2.Exercise the Body ; Writing requires a lot of sitting time, looking at a monitor. Legs get antsy. The eyes get tired. Running after children, hustling to fix lunch, lifting babies is a good way for me to stay active during my “day job”. Then when I get home I’m not restless, I can sit in a chair for hours. I’m physically exhausted but mentally I want to jump the walls.

3.Getting Focused; During some of my sits, night sits, the kids are asleep a lot of the time. After the dishes are taken care of, I open my laptop and write. Sometimes a baby will wake up, I quickly push save and get him or her back to sleep, patiently. But without the toys at my house, my DVDs, VHS tapes, and my bed (sleeping is fun), it’s easier to focus on my writing.

4.Toughens the skin; Children can be sweet, as long as you’re not forcing them to do anything they don’t want to. As a good babysitter I’ve found structure to be important, maintaining the same structure the parents impose. Sometimes a child will say “You’re not my friend anymore.” Or “I don’t like you”. That’s part of the job, just like getting criticism and rejection is for writing. As a babysitter I’ve learned not to take the “rejection” personally, which was hard at first but it’s helped me grow a thick skin.

5.Get over yourself; Forging professional yet friendly relationships is important for a writing career. Editors, agents, they’ll all have an opinion in what you should do. The same goes with parents in babysitting and with parents you have to listen to them. It’s their kid, so babysitting is good practice in doing what you’re told and a good antidote for the “I know better” mentality.

6.Be Silly; One can be silly at a sit, releasing the tension of being serious in front of a computer all day.

7. Write what you know; They say write what you know. Learning about people through every stage of development has helped me create deeper and more interesting characters. Do you know how having a sibling affects a person as an adult? What does a parent’s occupation have to do with how a child develops? I’ve seen people at their most mundane, but I’ve seen there’s a purpose in the mundane. It affects how people deal with things during tense and dramatic moments. The range of character possibilities increases exponentially the more people I meet. Some habits and personality traits that I never thought of have come to my attention and I put them together to create unique characters (not at all like the people I meet).

Now babysitting doesn’t afford me much. I could probably live with a roommate on noodles (to afford writing books, movies, novels) if I had to but I like living with my folks. One more thought; babysitting is hard work and takes a lot of compassion and sacrifice, but it’s worth it in the end. The children are loving and the parents grateful.

BACK IN BUSINESS WITH A NEW VISION

It's been awhile since I've posted. I've been busy writing a novel, four screenplays, and the concept for a TV sitcom, writing out outlines for new ideas (including two sequels to my novel, another TV show in addition to the one that started out as a movie when I was 13, a few more movie ideas, and other novel ideas) while working. Wow am I tired, but I'm running full steam ahead (with the hope that I will start getting an uninterrupted 6 hours of sleep a night for the next couple days).

One of the things I like about writing is it helps people (who write) get in touch with themselves. I've learned a few things in these last few months the most poignant thing is that despite my initial desire to write romance (it was God's joke: the abstinent girl writing romance) I tend to lean now towards religious pieces. I am very religious so that really shouldn't have surprised me the way it did. This comes after my failed attempt to write science fiction, my first love (besides God). I'm still working on my initial science fiction piece. It's changed a lot--from movie, to book, to TV show about a future world, instead of planets, which works similarly to ours but with some very unique differences whether they are better or worse will be up to the audience. It has turned into a romance, a comedy, and a war drama. Who knew being initially inspired by Star Wars would create a War drama. Thank you Sandy DeGris for being such a great history teacher, inspiring me to create what would make for a great war drama. For my movies I tend to write romantic comedies and things that are somewhat dramatic (not as dramatic as many TV shows are today because that's just ridiculous. After season one my suspension of disbelief has been shattered and it's not like anyone is going to live happily ever after, ever.). And of course in my stories there always has to be romance. What would life be without romance? Well for one it would end after a generation. Where do you think babies come from? Oh right, that. I wouldn't know anything about that. It's not like we can learn about it from TV and movies, which brings me to another point about writing.

Stories for a very very very long time have been channels for teaching lessons. I love that. This is a reason I like to write about Christianity, use good yet human characters as examples (so people know what it looks like), and to make things accurate. Yes, I did also get in trouble freshman year of high school for quoting some academic fact that I learned from Gilmore Girls, which was an incorrect fact, but doesn't that mean other people buy into those things too? Doesn't that mean as the story teller we are in some large way responsible for the ignorance of humanity. Okay, yes I'm being overdramatic. But we can use this power entertainment gives us to brainwash, I mean teach people important lessons, universal lessons.

Teaching lessons brings me back to the title of this post. The Bible has more universal lessons in it than any other book I have read. I've decided I'm a writer for God so I have renamed my blog to wells-writer4God. And I'm going to link it to my Facebook page (once I figure out how to do that) so I can have more than three followers--that would be smart.

The Cape Canceled

It's sad to hear NBC's The Cape was canceled. It stood out from the rest of TV with it's well written, genuinely goodhearted characters. Seeing a character with good intentions on TV is something viewers desperately need for, even though it shouldn't be done, TV characters are often the examples people look to. It's a tragedy that shows with characters like this are cut so often. I hope that the producers and writers are looking for new avenues to either resurrect The Cape or write a show with characters like these.

I've watched every episode of the Cape and really enjoyed that each one worked with those before taking all the potential plot lines into action. Often this is the fault with shows that have good ideas but are canceled for poor execution. For the Cape execution was not its problem. The show would have become a great success in the long stretch.

This hero lived in the real world, he was wounded, the press didn't know about him so he wasn't flocked with paparazzi or fans. Despite the superhero setting, using the unrealistic, I believed, nicely done writers.

The familial plot (the flashbacks) made the audience feel warm and fuzzy and desire Faraday get back to his family. How much Faraday loved his family was important to his character, gave him strength, lead him to what he had to do.

Orwell's motivations were also intriguing. Her good heart, willing to go against her family and isolate herself from people to do the right thing made her nothing short of a saint. Yet she was also very human in being crabby for she was lonely.

Good luck to all who were apart of the show!