You can spot them a mile away. They're so recognizable, you could find them with ease if they were in a Where's Waldo book. They truly stick out like a sore thumb, with their vibrant shirts with exquisite logos, cheesy slogans, and Bibles tucked under their arms.
Yes, you know who I'm talking about.
The quintessential "church kid."
You may not be in your home church while in college, but you know that you still fall under the "church kid" stereotype. Your entire life revolved around church, just like mine did in middle and high school. You were in church nine months before you were born, since your mom and dad were the ones who engrained this church lifestyle within your brain and were just as much the "church adults" as you were the church kid. So, chances are, you fully embodied what it meant to be a church, kid.
But, maybe it isn't all that obvious to you that you really were a church, kid. How can you tell if you fit the mold?
Here are seven ways to know if you were a church, kid. Why seven? Because every church kid knows that seven is super important in the Bible.
1. You have a large collection of church shirts.
Every time the church held an event, usually there was some sort of shirt that you received in order to represent how amazing God is or how much fun you had while attending. But, when you're a church kid, you don't just go to one event. That's insane. You were at every event. And you received every shirt. So, as you packed up your room and loaded all of your clothes into boxes to move back to school, you saw that over half of your shirts were from church. Your mom probably even asked you for quite a few so she could make a blanket out of them. And you know well enough that even if you gave her 20, you'd still have about 30 or 40 more left.
2. Your student pastor had a soul patch.
Whether it was like the facial hair posted above, or some other combination involving a goatee and/or a mustache, you knew who your student pastor was just by the iconic "youth pastor look." But, hey, you can't blame them for having just the soul patch; they couldn't grow the full beard, so instead of going baby-faced, it was the best way to set them apart from the high school seniors. After all, when you're fresh out of college and still look like your students, you have to do everything you can to distinguish yourself as different.
3. Your student ministry was named something really trendy.
As culture changes and shifts with each new trend, churches tend to shift in order to stay current with culture. And one shift that your church made was calling your student ministry something hip and cool to attract new students to it. You've probably had this conversation:
Friend A: "You busy tonight?"
You: "Yeah I am, I'm going to Fuel!"
Friend A: "Fuel?"
Friend B: "What's that? Is that some secret club or something?"
You: "No! It's my church's student ministry. You should come!"
So that's how you invited all your friends to Wednesday night service, where there was always tons of soda, snacks, and candy for you to consume in unhealthy amounts.
And, whatever your student ministry was called, there was always some sort of confusion or mix-up because the church right down the road probably had the same name for another ministry of theirs.
5. You went to every single summer camp, D-Now, spring/fall/winter retreat or event that happened.
And if you had the coolest leader(s) of them all, like I did in middle and high school, you knew missing one of these events meant missing out on having some of the cool factor being imputed to you while in small group time, dance parties in your room, late night shenanigans to prank the girls' group, or talking about who was cute in the guys' group.
6. Most of your music collection came from what was playing before service started.
Music discovery isn't the most prevalent objective of middle and high schoolers, at least it wasn't in my time in student ministry. Whatever was on the radio generally ended up being what you listened to.
But that all changed once you learned that your student pastor was playing Relient K before service started.
It was all you could do to resist the urge to get up in the middle of service to get your mom to drive you to FYE or Best Buy so you could pick up The Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek and blast "Sadie Hawkins Dance" or "Pressing On" in the minivan on the way to school every morning.
And, as a result of asking multiple times what song was playing, you slowly built your music catalog to become the most well-versed and eclectic library your friends had ever seen.
7. Your best memories are from being with your friends from church.
While you might have seen your friends from school every single day of the week, they were no match for the friends you made on Sundays and Wednesdays. It was almost like you wouldn't even consider people from school "friends" in comparison to the bonds you had with your church peeps.
Most of the time, you really didn't even choose these friends. They were just your parents' friends' kids, and you were relegated to a playroom or backyard with them while your mom hung out with her friends inside. And, before you knew it, they're the people you've been the closest with since you were toddlers, becoming your "brothers" or "sisters."
That was your clique. Ain't nobody messing with your clique. Ain't nobody fresher than your clique. As you look around, they don't do it like your clique.
So, as you reminisce about your childhood, you can't help but go back to the glory days of walking around the church before service started with your besties for the resting, all wearing the friendship bracelets that you made at camp that had the same cross bead in the middle.
Now that we're all aware that we were at one point or another that church kid, go ahead and put on one of those church shirts to remind everyone you were at those events. Maybe call your soul-patched student pastor to catch up on life (or ask for an internship next summer), offer to come up with a new name for the ministry, or see about being the next cool leader at D-Now or camp. Relive the first time you ever heard Relient K or Switchfoot over the sound system. And, most definitely dig out that friendship bracelet and call up your insanely awesome clique to see how their semester is going.
What else do you think describes the church kid persona?