I spent the last week with 400 middle schoolers and their youth leaders in Colorado. I was there as my middle-school-themed worship leader alter-ego, Jonas Montana. Actually, I went as part of my band six days from Sunday, who led the camp in worship over the week.
Middle school seems to get written off as that nebulous time between the happy kiddyness of elementary school and the social battleground of high school. However, those middle school years are crucial in forming who that young man or woman will be when they hit high school.
The great thing about doing these camps is that middle schoolers are old enough to understand deep concepts of life and faith, but still young enough to play and be a kid. They haven’t formed the superficial need to compare and obsess over their coolness. Um, yeah. [-5 cool points]
Do you remember anything about your middle school days? Were they terrific or traumatic?
TRAUMATIC.
Those three years were some of the toughest years of my life.
Sorry to hear that! Was it because you didn’t know us yet?
Definitely
oh to think of all the middle schoolers going through trauma because they don’t know us…
Yeah, mine were horrible too. I had no idea who I was and tried to be a lot of different people. Oh, and I didn’t know the cool ‘rents.