Freedom…

I was invited to a birthday party last night for one of the guys in my my youth group, Logan. I try to attend birthdays as much as I can (it’s hard because there are a lot of kids), but I knew this one was going to be special.

Logan was only having guys come over. We were going to have “a customary tea and a customary white cap” (if you don’t know what they means, don’t worry, you don’t need to know), eat meat, play video games, and just be guys.

It was a great night. Yeah, a lot of the boys from my church youth group were there; but there was also a strong representation of Logan’s school friends, kids who, quite frankly, I had either never met or had no idea where they stood on spiritual issues. A total cross-section of teenage guys.

And I discovered something…

Guys want to be free. They want to be free to act silly. They want to have a safe place where they can be themselves. They want to giggle (yeah, high school guys!). And they want to sing, dance, hug, and be real. How do I know that? Well, I saw it. In a way, I helped create it.

I was talking to the guys about our experiences on the Ensenada Mission trip last year, and Logan got a great idea. He wanted everyone to see our video of us doing the “nooma dance.” It’s basically a video of high school guys (and a couple of men) acting goofy to a Romanian dance song.

Anyway, after viewing that, the guys became “inspired.”

I told everyone that I had my Mac, and that we could film music videos through my iSight. Everyone was excited. What ensued was a group of high school guys acting ridiculous. Yes, we filmed music videos for “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred, “Wannabe” by The Spice Girls, “Who Let the Dogs Out” by The Baja Men, and “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys. And, they are quite hilarious. But I also realized that guys want to be free to not have to impress anyone. They want to be free to relax. There’s so much pressure, all the time, for teenage guys to be cool, attractive to girls, and independent that sometimes they forget that they are still young. They can act dumb.

Check out what the Bible says…

Genesis 3:10

“I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

You know, a byproduct of us being in this fallen world is that guys get scared to be who they are. They hide. I think it’s cool to see the smiles on these kids faces for just being able to be themselves. I hope Logan had a great birthday, and I hope his friends felt way different about it afterwards than they would have anywhere else. There’s freedom to be yourself in Christ. We didn’t do anything shady. We didn’t do anything wrong. And, yet, these guys were locked in and didn’t want to leave. Very cool.