09/09/2026
Former Youth Group Kid
The other day a friend asked if, in high school, I was a youth group kid.
I smiled and said yes.
He said, “I see it. Not in a bad way! But I see it.”
I didn’t take it in a bad way.
I am proud to be a former youth group kid. Look closely enough and you can still see the tan line from my WWJD bracelet.
Every Sunday night in high school, I was dropped off at church at six and picked up at eight. For those two hours, we ate food, played games, and talked about Jesus. Sometimes in that order, sometimes not.
The walls of our youth room were covered with hand-painted Bible verses and posters of Christian bands. There were couches that had survived several generations of teenagers and, if memory serves, smelled like it.
Youth group spilled beyond Sunday nights, too. For a week during the summer we went on a mission trip. Throughout the year we volunteered around our town and at church. Some weekends we went on retreats. We had Christmas parties and scavenger hunts and the occasional Wednesday night event.
We played dodgeball and sardines, and our pastor gave us a s*x talk, which is perhaps the most terrifying sentence in the English language when you are fifteen.
I learned about Donald Miller and Switchfoot and how I probably shouldn’t be watching The O.C., but I really wanted to know whether Seth and Summer were going to get together.
We studied Scripture, asked questions, and there were no tests.
Once, during high school, I was made fun of for being a youth group kid.
I didn’t understand the bully’s logic then, and I’m not sure I understand it now.
Here was a place where I was told God loved me, the pizza was free, and there were cute girls. What exactly was the downside?
Youth group was a kind of cheat code for surviving high school and hormones.
Somewhere between the dodgeball and the mission trips and the terrible couches, something was happening to me.
It was within the walls of our youth room that I wrestled with my faith and asked questions and wondered what this one life was about. I heard about Jesus differently than I did on Sunday mornings. I was challenged differently than I was in the classroom.
I got to play and be a kid and learn from adults who were still in touch with the kid inside of them.
These adults loved me as if I were one of their children, and I still don’t quite understand why.
I could have ten marshmallows in my mouth, cheeks bulging, trying desperately not to spit one across the room, but my ears were still open to hear that Jesus loved me.
Yes, I was a youth group kid.
And I loved it.
Maybe I need a bumper sticker that says “Former Youth Group Kid” to put right next to the ichthus.
Because that youth group kid is still somewhere inside of me.
Maybe that’s why I never turn down an opportunity to speak to youth groups and high school students. Maybe that’s why I find myself writing essays about my high school years. Maybe that’s why I’m in therapy.
Probably all three.
When I look back, I can see that something changed in me during those years. I was surrounded by adults who loved Jesus and invited me to live a life anchored in His love.
They gave me a place to ask enormous questions before I was old enough to know how enormous they were. They let me wonder and laugh and play and be a kid while I could still be a kid. They let me become myself while introducing me to a God who already knew me. They helped me through things I didn’t yet know I was going through. They gave me a safe place to belong while I figured out what it meant to be a human.
And every once in a while, they wanted to see how many marshmallows I could fit in my mouth.
Praise God.
With Hope,
Tanner Olson
