In March of 1997, Stephanie King, Brad Voth and I went to
Santa Barbara, CA to participate in L.O.G. #15 sponsored by Goleta Presbyterian
Church. A few months later, in August, eighteen youth and three adults flew all
the way from California to plant L.O.G. #1 at First Presbyterian Church in South Bend.
Since that time, we have had 60 more L.O.G. weekends in the
Michiana area and planted L.O.G. #1 at Lawrence Road Presbyterian Church near
Trenton, New Jersey this past month.
Our first L.O.G. weekend had only 12 participants. Our
church’s youth group was so small that we had to reach out beyond our group to
get enough participants to make the weekend go. So from the very beginning we’ve been ecumenical – open to
people from any church or denomination as well as to those who were not
connected to any church at all.
Although we didn’t recognize it then, we had already embraced that which
is now a hallmark of L.O.G. and M.Y.M - - many youth from many churches, many
schools and many communities.
We continued having two L.O.G.s each year – by the time we
reached L.O.G. #13 in the spring of 2003, we had 58 youth serving on the team
and they had invited 33 participants to come to the weekend. That meant nearly 100 people (including
adult advisors) out at Camp Ray Bird – it was pretty crazy!
When Michiana Youth Ministries was formed in 2005, we made
the decision to offer two fall L.O.G. weekends: #19 and #20. We did this so we could offer L.O.G. to
more of the youth of Michiana – and because so many team and participants on a
single weekend seemed to greatly reduce the intimacy of the retreat and make it
less likely that first-time participants would come back to serve on a team.
It turned out that this was a controversial decision – one
full of angst and anguish as the team members had to make hard choices about on
which team they would serve. Who
would the CoLeaders be? Who else would be on which team? On what night would the
team meetings take place and what weekend fit the schedule better?
Two and a half years later, we scheduled three spring
weekends: #29, #30 and #31. You’d
think that this might have ratcheted up the angst even higher, but by then we
were all pretty used to the idea that not everyone could be on a team with all
their best friends. In fact,
smaller communities had formed within our larger L.O.G. community. We encouraged all LOGgers to try
different smaller teams and then come together for special events and vertical
worship nights so new friendships could be established and old friendships
could be nurtured.
Through the years, we have come to the belief that the ideal
size for a team is somewhere between 20-30 – big enough but not too big. Any smaller and we wouldn’t have enough
people for all the skits, talks, table groups etc. Any bigger and we tend toward more cliquishness and not
really knowing everyone on the team.
Our Summer 2012 Team had 54 youth serving on it. But with summer camps, mission trips
and vacations, we usually ended up with 35-45 at any one meeting. This was bigger than ideal but,
remarkably, this team had a strong sense of unity and love for one
another. And it helped that only
38 youth served at either Bsahor or New Jersey – much closer to that ideal
number.
Sometimes a team ends up being too small, as is the case
right now with L.O.G. #62 that currently only has 15 team members. In cases like this, we rely on those
daring souls that are willing to serve by going beyond their comfort zone and
joining a team that wasn’t their first choice.
It seems that some people are inclined to seek the comfort
of being on a team with their friends and really want to support their friends
who are serving as Co’s. We have
also seen some youth who are willing to step out in faith and join a team where
they may not already know everyone – and really benefit by doing so as they
build new friendships and stretch themselves in new ways.
Many of us really believe that as powerful and fun one’s
participant L.O.G. may be, it is in coming back to serve on a team that one
grows closer to the community and deeper in faith – and are better prepared to
serve on and in a much bigger team: the family of God.
