Not My Circus

Saturday afternoon, our church’s teens were invited to attend an event. The title of the program was “The Main Event.” Its foundation was based on a circus theme. The sponsors and leaders wore circus appropriate costumes. The teens were also invited to wear costumes displaying some kind of circus character. We ran a van to collect any teen that needed a ride. It made this gala affair available to more of those who didn’t have a ride or lived a bit farther away from Mt. Zion Community Church.

One of the youth leaders costume was a ballerina or tightrope walker, I wasn’t sure which. She wore a powder blue tutu. Another woman wore a silver tube and a motorcycle helmet. She pretended to be a person who was shot from a cannon. One of the men wore a shirt with cut off sleeves and carried dumbbells as our strongman. There was a lady who used a Styrofoam head attached to her shoulder. She was our two headed lady. I wore a thick black beard and a curly haired wig with a furry wrap and carried a club. I was the sideshow wild man. Our youth pastor wore the ringleader’s garb with the gold epaulets carrying a gold topped cane.

Some of the male teens didn’t dress, but wore their jeans and t-shirts. They were much too cool to dress for the occasion, but they still enjoyed the many games as well as the various snacks, food and drink. One young man wore a Revolutionary War soldier’s uniform and was dubbed Colonel Tom Thumb, the midget in P. T. Barnum’s circus. Another wore a clown’s costume with a red nose, bright pants, multi-colored wig, and huge shoes. One gal decorated herself with balloons as an interpretation of a dart throwing booth in a sideshow. One girl dressed as a mime. She didn’t say much, but smiled a lot.

Games included ring toss, duck pond, hungry hippos, monkey in the middle, and a team activity where they had to walk a maze, build a cardboard car, and race back to the finish line with the entire team inside the clown car. It was a tight fit.

Teens moved to the sanctuary to answer questions about the circus. Wrong answers earned a clown nose, sprayed with water, or shaving cream pie in the face. Then it was time for serious business. Our youth pastor shared that too often our attention in life is diverted by Satan’s “side shows” and away from the main event of the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation. This “main event” in our life will determine our course in life and throughout eternity.