To be honest i wasn't even sure what it was, or what it was for. But yet.... we did it! And it rocked!! How I hear you ask?
I had so many questions, so here are a few that were running around my head,
and the answers I either found out, or made up myself.
What does Exo mean?
If you are as clueless as I was, "exo" stands for excellent. As far as I know its the creation of the organisation called "Youth Alive", who has a head office in each state.
Why have an Exo day?
The original idea was to throw a school based event to connect with unchurched kids, to demonstrate to them that you could still have and "excellent" day, without drugs or alcohol. I think it has changed into something not quite so directed, and its about inspiration and encouragement, and what I have learnt, its an act of love. Its also still an excellent way to make connections with your target ministry age group. And it cant hurt to connect with teachers and staff who are other significant influences on the kids in your community.
What does an Exo day look like?
This was a tricky question, but for me the most important one. The only consistency I saw from one school based exo day to the next was a sausage sizzle and most often a musician or band.
Our day was simple as it was our first, but still fun. It started first thing in the morning before school when the local radio station brought out their "Black panther" car and gave away freebies and promoted the day. Not because we wanted outsiders to come but because we wanted to stir up some excitement.
The school gave us all of the lunch period to have what we called a "festival" plus the two periods after lunch. One of those were already allocated to an assembly anyway so the flow from festival to assembly was a natural one.
The festival part was a sausage sizzle, a can of drink and a mini showbag. The kids could get an airbrush tattoo, jump on the jumping castle or participate in the horizontal bungee competition. That was it. And it was all free for the kids.
During the lunch period, we also provided an afternoon tea for the staff. The ladies of the church each baked something yummy and some girls from youth studying hospitality at school laid it all out pretty in the staff. All was eaten. I'd say that worked!
After lunch the kids moved into the assembly hall where we had 2 of our girls perform a couple of contemporary songs (not Christian but appropriate) and then we showed a slide show compiled by some of our kids of photos taken over the last year from our Youth events. We promoted Big Exo Day in September and then passed over to our speaker from Youth alive, Darren McMahn (Dazza!). He spoke really well and the kids (even the sceptical ones) were laughing and enjoying his message. Then we drew a raffle in which all kids names were in the box, awarded the prizes, said thank you, packed up and went home.
How much did it all cost?
Not as much as you would think. We wrote a standard letter and posted it to everyone we could think of asking for donations. some say no, but some will shock you with their generosity. We had pizza hut give us 250 free pizza vouchers. Not mini pizzas, full size pizzas for free, with no other purchase required!! We had over $1000 donated in prizes, about $500 in cash for purchasing foodstuff for the event, plus sausages and drinks were either donated or heavily discounted.
The jumping castle and horizontal bunge was heavily discounted because it was for such a short time and mid week. Our biggest investment was the speaker, but certainly worth the money.
We did have out of pocket expenses, about $1500 if you count everything, but we fund raised in advance. This I found was the hardest thing, we sold chocolates. I prefer one off events like air brush tattoo stalls and raffles or guessing competitions and we used those too, but the chocolate selling raised the most.
How much help did you have?
All up we had about 45 volunteers on the day.
All the kids from youth wanted to help that attended the local public high school, which was about 30. Kids are enthusiastic but cant seem to prepare anything reliable without direction and constant supervision. Its like homework for them and their avoid it as much as they can until the last minute, which made for a very nervous youth pastor. Maybe next year they will have more initiative.
Some kids came from other high schools to help on the day, and they were great to supervise the jumping castles, squeeze the sauce bottles and collect raffle tickets.
I have 2 awesome ladies from my team who are doing a community studies course and needed a project (God is good) and so did all the letter writing and ringing and picking up of things.
I had about 10 people from the church volunteer on the day, at least 6 of them giving up work for the day (we gave them lots of notice). One was in charge of showbags, another drinks, another 2 the sausage sizzle, another the staff afternoon tea, etc. Delegation is the key. It really made it easier.
Any problems?
The short answer is YES! The first being I have something I like to call event anxiety. Anytime I am involved in the planning of an event I suffer significant stress (I have been known to vomit) anything up to 24hours before. So it was very important to me that we didnt have any problems. However. Here they are.
We discovered a band we anticipated playing couldn't come 3 weeks before, and a musician we hoped to come not abe to, which we found out about on the day of the event! Allthough I stressed significantly, 2 girls from our youth stepped up and performed.
Our showbags had DVDs in them. I had delegated this task and not checked up on it. Some DVDs given out to the kids were rated MA. Ooops. I placated the principal apologising profusely and told her "next time" I would know better.
The weather man predicted snow!! Although the sun shone, ( I don't think I have reminded God of his control of the weather ever more times in my life!) it was still bitterly cold. I discovered teenagers don't feel or care about the cold as much as we do.
What impact did it have?
I'm still trying to formalise a feedback form to give to teachers and volunteers and kids, but all informal feedback was great. the principal exclaimed it "well organised" and "a great day" in an email after the event. We had 10 brand new kids come to youth the week after, and seeing our average attendance is 50-60, that's a huge leap for us. There was reports in two local newspapers about the event and the school newsletter (admittedly i submitted 2 of them!). All over facebook kids from the high school were directed quoting Dazza's talk. But my favourite response was from both students and teachers to the churched kids at the school..."Why did they do it? Why was it all free?". Gifts are a rare but valued currency in the world and this day stood out to them as an act of love without a clear selfish motive.
We didn't have any salvations but i wasn't after them at the school exo day. I know, shocking. I really prayed about this day and the purpose of it, I think the whole confusion about what it was lead me into prayer about it alot. God loves these kids, and most of them are at the point where they don't even know it. He wanted them to experience love unconditional. So we did a no strings attached festival day just to love them.
Also, it was an act of worship to God. Some days during the planning when it became difficult, the only reason i worked on it so determinedly was because I love God. Even if every kid was absent that day I still would have done it for Him. Even if we had 10cms of snow (like some were predicting!) It still would of gone on. My relationship to God is more important than anything I can try or do.
Would you do it again?
I hope so! I had alot of help and donations, so as long as all that happens again i think I will. I would like to do one every year. because of our bad weather here in Blayney maybe a little earlier. Also we have our foot in the door of the school now, and I don't want to lose the impact we had from the success of the first one. I'm learning momentum is important. I want our group to be consistent and faithful and dependable. Something the kids can rely on. Doing something yearly is predictable and reflective of God's faithfulness. that's what I think anyway.
And now the kids at high school know who we are. We may not be "cool" to everyone yet, but at least we are not unknown anymore. And I like that. So yes. Look out for another post exo day post in 2012.
So that's our School Exo Day. Should you do it? Yes. It could be as simple as a sausage sizzle, or as dramatic as a stage show, it doesn't matter. Let it come from your own teams strength and creativeness, from the generosity of the community, and your faith. If i can overcome my vomitus anxieties and throw a School Exo day, Im sure you can.
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