Hungry Hippos, Egg Roulette, and a God that never gives up.

Pre club hangout.

A couple Sundays ago we had CLUB at the Riley's house. Club is an incredibly fun night. Some people in Young Life call it a "party with a purpose," but if you had a chance to see it for yourself you might call it something more like "controlled chaos!" 

Madie getting gnarly on the trampoline.

Club is a night of crazy games, tons of laughter, leaders and kids getting crazy together, relationships being built, and Jesus being put on display. There is a bigger focus on fun at club than at our Friday morning gatherings, and a whole lot more energy. Everything is designed to allow kids to be kids, the crazy middle schoolers that they are, all while getting to be with caring adults that love Jesus. 

Hungry Hungry Hippos

The first game we played was a throw-back to one of my favorite games growing up: Hungry Hungry Hippos. Each team had a skateboard, and kids took turns on the board as one of their teammates would push them out to the middle where they would try to capture as many balloons as they could with a laundry basket. The wind started blowing all the balloons around which made things a bit more interesting!

Duct Tape Trolly Race

The next game was introduced by our own "Duct Tape Man!" Duct Tape Man is a character Matt Wright does. He made an elaborate costume out of duct tape and comes out claiming he can fix everything with duct tape. As a part of training, he had us play a game called "Duct Tape Trolly." Kids got into groups of 3 or 4, and all stood on a piece of tape, sticky side up. They then had to race around a course without breaking the tape.

Tyler with a raw one!

Egg roulette.

The next game got a bit messy! We played a mash up of "hot potato" and "egg roulette." Two objects got passed around while playing hot potato, and when the music stopped the people with the objects had to come and each pick out an egg. Half of the eggs were hard boiled, half were raw!

Jay got yoked

After they picked their egg, they had to smash it on their head or face at the count of three. It was awesome to see kids get so into this, and hilarious to watch as the leaders played right along with everyone!

Tyler was the only one with a raw egg!

Before the night was over I got the opportunity to share about Jesus. I shared about how Jesus didn't hang out with the kind of people the religious people thought he should be hanging out with. Jesus didn't hang out with churchy people, he didn't hang out with religious people.

Jesus hung out with a lot of people that didn't care to be religious, he even hung out with people that didn't want anything to do with religion. There were two groups of people Jesus hung out with that really bothered the religious people of that time: tax collectors, and prostitutes. Basically, tax collectors took advantage of the power Rome gave them and manipulated people into giving them money. They were despised. Prostitutes, well, they don't need much explanation, but think about what it would be like if Jesus came today and hung out with porn stars… that's a pretty good picture of the kind of people Jesus spent time with, of the kinds of people Jesus was friends with.

One time the religious people questioned Jesus, and Jesus told them a story about a shepherd who had lost one of his sheep. He asked, "who, if you lost one sheep, wouldn't leave the others and go find that sheep?" This was what Jesus was doing. He was going after the people that didn't want anything to do with God. He was chasing after them to show them how deeply God loved them… even when they didn't want anything to do with him. Then Jesus said, " and who of you after finding the sheep wouldn't go home and throw a party?" Jesus said its like this in heaven when someone who doesn't want anything to do with God accepts him, he said heaven throws a party.

God doesn't hold his love only for those that love him back. God loves us all, and God is restlessly pursuing us all. There is no club where some of us are in and we can keep others out. God is not like that. God welcomes all… Jesus, God come to this world, hung out with the people that were not welcomed to be part of the "in" club.

The family of God is open to all, no matter how far off we might wander, no matter how many mistakes we have made, no matter how little we know about him… God is looking for us all.

Sometimes you gotta lead by example!