On Our Way To Crazy

Several months ago we were asked to head up a new care group at our church. I was a little unsure of taking on something else that I had to be in charge of… I didn’t want to just pile another thing on that I had to worry about and that would cause me a bunch of stress with an unknown payoff. I already have a ton of those things in my life.

But, of course, we took it. It’s what we do. If they asked me to teach the senior adults class I would do it. I know nothing about senior adults or their issues or what they want to talk about. But I would do it. Thankfully, they haven’t asked me to do that.

The group was initially intended to be a mixture of college students, single adults, and young married couples (without kids). Most of those people were already in care groups, but they weren’t attending for one reason or another. (We were attending ours, but mostly because we felt like we were supposed to. We were one of two childless couples in a group where kids outnumbered adults by a ratio of about 12:1. It was not the most fun I’ve ever had.) We were looking to try and provide a smaller, more intimate group where people who were just a life stage or two away from each other could get together.

We started out with a Christmas party in December that was attended by five college students and five married couples. Clearly there was a divide. The party was a lot of fun, what with the giant pink underpants and the WWE spinning gold belt and the mile-long eyelash. But we were dealing with two very different groups of people.

The feedback we got was very clear – the college students don’t want to go to a couple’s group. They don’t want to have a discussion group, they just want to hang out with each other and have a good time. The couples (and older singles), on the other hand, want more than just a social meeting time. They want to have discussions and do studies and really dig into some stuff.

When it first came up, I have to admit that I was a little hurt. Here we are, taking on another group of people at the church and trying to figure out how to create a place for them where they’ll be comfortable and can make some connections, and we were brutally rebuffed. I don’t know how to deal with that. I felt like we had good intentions in putting this together, and our plans never even got a chance to get off the ground.

Last night was our first ‘real’ meeting. We haven’t made any changes in the group structure as yet, opting instead to keep the group as is for the first meeting and see what happens. Shockingly, none of the college students showed. We had ten people – five couples. And y’all? It was a great, great meeting. We had a really good discussion and a lot of fun. It was exactly what we needed, not just as care group leaders, but personally and as a couple. It was nice to get to just spend time with people who we weren’t responsible to teach or guide or convince to go to camp.

I don’t begrudge the college students at all. I think sometimes we forget that we’re older than we think we are. At 27, I don’t feel old, but at 19 I felt like 27 was a million miles away. We’ll figure out a plan for them, whether Aaron and I are involved or not. But it was clear last night that there are a lot of people at our church who are in a similar life stage that we’re in, and those people are looking for community. We are those people. And if we can provide that for them and for ourselves, then that’s what we need to be putting our efforts towards.

Even if it means I have to give up control of something I thought I could handle. Yikes.