Visiting Middle Schools

Every week me and one of my youth coaches (Bob, he's amazing!) tries to hit one of our middle schools to visit students at lunch. There are many weeks where this feels forced and like a task I "have" to do. But everytime I'm reminded that it is really meaningful for students.

This last monday Jen went with us and we visited a middle school and we had a great time. We spent maybe 30 minutes there.

Yesterday one of the mom's saw me at church and said, "Thank you so much for visiting the kids at school. The first thing they said when I picked them up was "Bob and Jen and Ken came to lunch today and it was so awesome!!!! and they went on to share about all the stuff we talked about.

Last year I went to a school to visit a 6th grader on his birthday. I went to a local supermarket, bought a $1.49 giant cupcake...went to school...saw him in the lunch room...gave him the cupcake...made some small talk...and left. maybe spent 5 minutes.

(I would have hung out longer but the student didn't want to leave his table of buddies and there wasn't any room for me. and at this school they have special tables where you can get up and go hang out with a visitor during lunch. but he clearly didn't want to.)

Then I got this email from his mom:


Ken,

Thanks for taking time from your day yesterday to surprise John at school for his birthday! He loved your visit and the colossol cupcake. I could never have gotten away with a middle school visit, even if it was his birthday, but you pulled it off!


The last time I did High School Ministry, I did tend to get the feeling of not feeling wanted by the students. Now, it could have been my lack of relationships with them, but I wonder if it was a "I can't believe my youth pastor is checking up on me at school" kind of thing. When I was in HS I LOVED it when my youth pastor came to hang out. but I'm a dork like that.

For any of you who work with HS...do you visit schools? Do you get a better response than I did a couple years ago?