Connections Dinner: What's Worth Knowing
by Jan Devor
Our junior high youth in the past and now our Coming of Age youth sponsor a Connections Dinner every year. The youth invite members in the congregation who are 70 years of age and older. They select a theme for the evening, prepare the meal, serve, and provide entertainment. This year the theme was What's Worth Knowing. This theme was inspired by a book of the same name by Wendy Lustbader which is filled with vignettes by older people about what they have come to realize as worthwhile in their lifetimes. Youths provided questionnaires for everyone to fill out. Then photos were taken of all participants. Meanwhile there was music as people came in to fill out the forms while everyone gathered. The youths also filled out the questionnaires with what they have learned that is worthwhile from their life experiences. When most of the people had gathered we welcomed everyone and read vignettes from the book. The people were told to finish their forms and to enjoy their dinner. With dessert, we announced a fun activity using the questionnaires. One person at each table gathered up the forms and read a question and then read all the answers for each question. Those at one table had us guess if the answers came from the adults or the youth! Sometimes it was hard to tell! We all learned a great deal. Then the youth and adults did a mini-talent show and we called it an evening.
As a follow up to this event, the membership committee had an all-church luncheon using the same questionnaires. We took photos to accompany the questionnaires. The questionnaires will be given to all new members to invite their sharing. All of the responses from the Connections Dinner and the luncheon will be gathered into a booklet for our library.
The questions we used are from the book What's Worth Knowing by Wendy Lustbader. The questions are as follows:
- What do you know now that you wish you had known before?
- What advice would you give a young(er) person about how to live life?
- Has anyone taught you a valuable lesson? What was that lesson?
- If you could live your life over again what would you do differently?
- What would you do the same?
| 
