Why Lunch Room Visits Are Important

Visiting youth during their school lunch time can be difficult. First of all, some schools do not let in any visitors at all. Other schools make it tricky by first making you get a background check and your fingers printed. Other schools require notes from parents and identification. If they finally let a youth worker in, usually we are instructed to not talk about religion or invite youth to our church. After all this, then trying to find some of your youth in a wild sea of teenagers in an overcrowded lunch room is like looking for a certain type of fish in the ocean.  It can be a humiliating experience as some teens glare at you assuming you are someone’s parent or in my case when teachers yell at me to get back to class.  But once you get through that entire mess let me tell you a few reasons why it is worth it…

1. You get to know your youth outside of church and see who they really are.

2. You get to meet their friends and this is how I have seen the most growth in our youth program. Many new students coming are friends of my students who I met at lunch.

3. You get to build relationships with teens that will never go to your church or maybe any church yet let them know they are loved.

4. If your church pays for it you get free food!

5. Lunch room visits allow you to meet teachers and other school staff who are key people to connect with so they can let you know families who are in need.  

6. Lunch visits allow you to model to your youth how to be Christ to others by asking your students to join you as you sit with others who are lonely, hurting, or considered outsiders.

7. Getting in the door for lunch may help open up other opportunities such as getting asked to judge a forensics meet or speak at Fellowship of Christian Athletes or other Christian groups.

8. Parents love to know someone else is looking out for their kid during school.

9. Most of your students will LOVE you for it and love to know they are valued.

10. Most of all, it gets you inside the doors of the place where your teens spend most of their time allowing you to step into their world. It is a fresh reminder of what they have to go through each day.

I encourage youth workers to go out and make those lunch room visits if the schools in your community allow it. It is worth all the hassles of getting in so you can be Immanuel (God with us) to your youth by stepping into their world.