Church Activities for Youth

After confirmation I was nominally a full-fledged member of the congregation, but of course my role was that of a young immature adolescent. I was naturally a member of the Luther League, the church organization for young persons of high school age, and I suppose with a few beyond that age who had remained in the community after completing high school.

The Luther League met twice a month, in the evening. There was always some sort of program (generally religious in nature but of which I have no specific recollection). This was followed by some sort of business session and then the inevitable refreshments. I was president of the group for at least one term and I remember presiding at the business sessions.

The Luther League would sponsor some fund-raising events, although I am sure there were membership dues. On one occasion while I was the president there was an ice cream social as such an event. It was to be held on the grounds of an old Standard Oil gas station located just kitty-corner across the block (but in the same block) as the church property. I announced the forthcoming event but a mental lapse caused me to refer to it as a strawberry festival, why I haven’t the remotest idea. I recall being corrected by the assembled group and being kidded about it afterward.

For young church members of high school age there was also the possibility of attendance at a church camp somewhere in the vicinity of Boone, Iowa. I suppose the camp was located in the wooded area adjacent the Des Moines river; to whom the facility actually belonged I don’t know. I never attended the camp (I was not in any way attracted to the experience) but my sister Clarice did, at least once.

Clarice always wanted to have what the others did, I couldn’t care less. So she wanted to go to the camp because others were going, I did not. She wanted to buy a class ring, I opted for a wrist watch from my parents. She disliked going to junior college because others were leaving the community for college somewhere else, I enjoyed the two years I had at junior college. Doubtless the camp included a substantial amount of religious instruction but there was also recreational activity of one kind or another.

As I mentioned I think that Clarice felt much more keenly than I the desire to do what her peers would and were doing and attendance at this church camp was one of the things she yearned for. I can’t recall my specific attitude towards possible attendance but it certainly was not high on the things I wanted to do. Perhaps even then I was starting to react negatively to anything to do with conventional religion and Lutheranism in particular.