Snow, Ice & Communion

This past week at our MidWeek gathering we had a subtle little snow storm come into town, drop about 1" of snow but it froze up the roads quite a bit.  It forced some of our leaders & a lot of our students to miss the evening due to traffic.  Our attendance was down about 50% for the night but some great things happened.
It was a smaller crowd which changed up the dynamics of the room, the music setting & the teaching setting.  None of these aspects are bad and for the evening it gave some intimacy to the night as we were able to be a little more interactive with some key aspects.

1--It helped me see which of our volunteers adapted to the change.  I think it was a great night to have a little evaluation test on the fly.  Change the variables and see what you get.  What we got was a glimpse at a smaller crowd with less leaders on hand but longer lasting groups in conversations.  I was able to talk at more length with some students about some significant things in their life & their friends.  With less students around I didn't feel as much pressure to try to roam or work the entire room.  Other leaders had similar opportunities as well!

2--It gave us as a ministry a new baseline to work from.  Because of the room dynamics we have it showed me quickly what our minimum amount of students we need so the room doesn't dwarf us.  It gave me a new set design idea for a future series as well as some thoughts on how to redesign some of our meeting space.

Teaching on communion I had two students come up to me & say that experience was the 1st time they'd ever taken communion and they'd been followers of Christ for years.  I had a thought of "AWESOME you got to experience that with your peers" but I also had the thought "Man, why not until now?!?"

It was another good reminder that students, regardless of the family & faith dynamic, are never where you think they are.  Student ministry often gives us some great chances to hold students hands through some significant phases in life and encourage them as they keep taking faith steps.