I remember it like it was yesterday, a youth night like no other. The church foyer was filled with students, many ripe with excitement and others ripe with body odor. There was much anticipation about a game that was rumored to be played that night and for weeks leading up to it snippets of what could be were flying around the group. The students arrived in clothes that “could get dirty” and the girls were obviously not as excited as the boys. As the students filed into the gym, lights low seeing two bases made of cardboard boxes sat at opposing ends of the gym ready for a siege.
The excitement was pierced when the youth intern pulled the trigger on the Mega-phone and bellowed into the mic “ITS TIME TO PLAY TROUT-A-PULT”. As you can imagine, the high fiving amongst the guys began nearly immediately as did the steady stream of sudden and severe ailments that our young ladies began to experience that would not allow them to participate. The teams were divided and the rules explained.
The Premise: Using a water balloon launcher, each team was given several large rainbow trout that they would use to launch at the other teams base. Each team would alternate shots and the first team to knock down the other teams base was victorious. Seemed logical, they throw fish around at Pike Place Market in Seattle every day and nothing seems to go wrong there.
MISTAKE #1: The water balloon launcher was rated for 200 yards of distance, which would not be a problem except that our gym is only 50 yards long.
MISTAKE #2: Hours earlier when the new intern went to buy the fish. He chose to save the Church some money (an honorable move) and bought frozen fish instead of fresh as they were on sale and much cheaper. This would not have been a big deal, that is if he did not elect to defrost the shrink-wrapped fish in a sink of hot water.
The Outcome: The game ended as fast as it started, as the first fish was loaded up into the launcher and the very excited boys leaned back as hard as they could to ensure that the fish would travel far enough. As the guy on the trigger let go, it all went completely wrong. First, the sling shot attempted to propel the fish 4 times farther than the gym was long. It left the launcher at incredible speeds, and is it did, the speed exposed the other mistake that was made. Defrosting a fish in hot water does more than defrost, it cooks the fish, the result being that instead of one cohesive fish unit flying at light speed across the gym, it was now thousands of smaller pieces.
As what remained of the once mighty trout approached the other side of the gym, pieces peppered the opposing team, landing in student’s hair, on their clothes, and in their mouths causing them to scramble for their lives. The bulk of the fish missed the students, but instead hit the wall behind them, which would not have been a problem had it not lodged into the church’s air intake vent on the wall. The fish smell lingered for nearly a week throughout the church, and the Trout-A-Pult will be go down as the worst game we ever played.
Moral of the Story: There are many great reasons that custodial staff may never like the youth ministry and this is one of them, but its stories like this that will live on in infamy among our students and leaders. It may have been a disaster, but no one got hurt and the memories will last a lifetime and eight years later the story still gets told around campfires and youth ministry conventions. Students don’t care if the game goes as planned, they just want to have fun doing it and it can be the disaster games that are the most fun, youth ministry isn’t always serious and being ridiculous can be a good thing from time to time.
Geoff Stewart is the Youth Pastor at Peace Portal Alliance Church in Surrey B.C. where he oversees Journey Student Ministries. He is married to Lavonne and they have two cats, Norman and Puff Daddy. Geoff Blogs all over the place and tweets often, but not TOO often. Follow him on twitter @geoffcstewart.
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